


Keep Pushing (I'll let you right in)

by Nakimochiku



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-08
Updated: 2015-02-12
Packaged: 2018-02-28 15:40:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 22,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2737898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nakimochiku/pseuds/Nakimochiku
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eren is an all or nothing kind of person. For Marco, he's willing to accept "for however long we have."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. First Year

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to Mando for sitting up with me till dawn, brain storming and headcanoning and tearing this fic into little pieces, throwing them in my face and telling me to do it again, then editing the eviscerated pieces. not that i gave her much of a choice while i occupied her bed.

Eren can tell at first glance Marco is the sort of boy people grow to adore and depend on. He has an open friendly face, a soothing, friendly voice, and a sunny disposition. He’s the sort of boy who people trust, tell their secrets to, the sort of boy who solves problems. Eren’s not impervious to the kind of charms freckles, dimples, and a sweet smile offer; he knows he’ll be in the same boat as everyone else.  

He can tell that when Marco sidles up to him as he’s collecting his dishes to put in the washtub, mouth twisted and apologetic. “Sorry about that, before.” Marco says softly, daringly touching his arm. He’s holding a steaming mug in his hand, and he offers it to Eren, who takes it and takes a slow sip. “Those kids don’t really get what you’ve been through.”  

Eren wants to say something biting, something like “and you do?” but he’s learned not to bite the hand that feeds, in this case, literally.  

“You probably think I’m a spoiled city kid, and you’d probably be right.” Marco smiles, and there’s something in that smile that Eren understands, recognizes perhaps in Armin. It’s the kind of smile that means he’s saying one thing and means something else entirely. “I saw your face back there and—“  

Eren doesn’t want to talk about it. And he certainly doesn’t want to think about it. His problem is that he’s always thinking about it, it’s always at the back of his mind, trailing the edges of his dreams; he always sees her broken body, that wide-open mouth –  

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have—”  

“I’m fine,” Eren growls, pushing the steaming mug back into Marco’s hand, but he catches his wrist and looks at him earnestly, pulling him back. Eren’s skin is crawling, nausea rolling through him, he wants to slap Marco away and find somewhere quiet and solitary. Marco’s earnest, pleading eyes stop him, and Eren’s already sure those dimples have him under sway.  

“You’re not okay.” Marco says, pressing the mug back into his hands. It feels like the biggest understatement Eren’s ever heard, and he wants to lash out because he doesn’t need —Marco holds tighter. “But you will be.” Eren stops, finds he’s on the verge of tears, breathing too harshly through his mouth. “You will be.”  

Eren doesn’t believe him, and Marco slowly pries his fingers away. They are alone for all of a moment, before Krista peers around the corner, arms loaded with dirty dishes. She blinks, and sets the dishes in the wash tub. “Are you two alright back here?” she says too sweetly, “Anything I can do to help?”  Eren kisses his teeth and backs away, needs an eternity from fake kindness and the promise of “better”.  

He’s never going to get better. He doesn’t want to.  

*  

Marco likes to make conversation while he works, chatting good naturedly about any and everything between grunts of exertion and the whistle- thunk of each axe swing as they chop fire wood.  Eren doesn’t mind his chatter when he isn’t speaking to him directly; Connie carries the other half of the conversation. Summer heat makes the work unbearable, so that they’ve draped their shirts over nearby bushes and tree branches, skinned bared and burning in the sun.  

"Armin was telling me there used to be things called constellations, shapes that the stars make in the sky." Marco is saying and Eren  tunes in a little at the mention of his friend. He knows this story; he has the shapes of constellations memorized, so that sometimes he traces them with his fingers and points them out to Armin. "Each constellation appears for a certain month, so since I’m born in June, my constellation is Gemini."  

"Oh!" Connie chirps, dropping his ax. "What constellation am I?"  

"You'll have to ask Armin, I can’t remember them all." Marco leans on his axe buried in the stump before him, looking wistful.  Eren keeps setting little logs before him to chop down to size. "But talking about all the constellations and stuff reminded me of my birthday."  

"Yeah, when is it?"  

"On the sixteenth. Before my… We used to have these parties, and Ma would bake me a cake and make all my favourites for dinner." Marco sighs fondly, and Eren  clenches his jaw, and does not think of his last happy birthday, does not think of his mother fondly pinching his cheek, calling him her big man. He does not think about things he can’t have. 

Connie whistles appreciatively, but Eren takes his piles of chopped wood to stack them in neat pyramids beside the shed. "Sucks you can’t go home for your birthday."  

"Even if I could, Ma couldn’t do any of those things for me." He smiles sadly, the pathetic twisting of his mouth reminding Eren so much of Armin. Connie wisely does not ask why not, picking up his ax. He gets in a few swings before he throws it down again, face open and grins wide like he’s thought of something brilliant.  

"I know. We'll do something special for your birthday. Right, Eren?"  

"Hm?" Eren dutifully sets up another chunk of wood. Connie slings an arm around his shoulders, jostling him. "I don’t really celebrate birthdays." There is a silent any more tacked on. Perhaps Connie doesn’t hear it. He jostles him some more, whining, but Eren pushes him away.  

“Don’t worry Marco.” Connie is saying, slinging his arm over Marco’s shoulders instead, though he needs to stand on tiptoe in order to reach him. “We’ll give you a birthday party you’ll never forget.”  

Eren isn’t listening.  He shakes his shirt of leaves, having completed his part of the chore, to find Armin, and maybe talk about constellations and all their stories.  

*  

Eren wakes trembling, tears gathered beneath his eyelids and slipping free. He can’t will them away, and he doesn’t know why he’s crying.  

Armin’s hand is warm on his arm." Eren. Eren, it’s okay. It was just a dream." He shakes him.  Eren knows it wasn’t just a dream; it was his whole world breaking apart, the pit of his stomach falling out, his entire existence tilting off balance.  

He dares open his eyes. Everyone in the barracks is looking at him, and he realizes he must have been crying out loudly. He hurriedly scrubs at his damp cheeks, tries to reassure Armin with a look that he’s alright.  

He sees Marco over Armin’s shoulder; face bloody and bared teeth gleaming, eyes blank, torso ripped and bitten into. He feels dread turn his blood to ice, fear close a hand over his spine. He feels like someone’s punched him in the gut. Tears spill from his eyes anew.  Just a dream, he tells himself as he presses his forehead to his knees, and Armin soothingly rubs his back,  just a dream.   

There is no blood splashed over Marco’s chest, his dimpled mouth is not slack, his freckled cheek is not torn. Marco is breathing and looking back at him in question, slipping into his shirt and jacket in turn.  

“It’s alright.”  Eren whispers, looking away. He barely knows the Marco kid, certainly has no reason to be featuring him in gruesome nightmares that, as he wakes up more fully; becoming more aware of the sleep warm smell of the barracks, Armin’s small hand on his back and shoulder, the rustle and shuffle of cadets getting  dressed or making their cots;  he finds he barely remembers. First there are images, then splashes of colour, then shadows, then vapour, no more substantial than his own breath against his curled knees. “I’m alright.”  

“You sure, Jaeger?” Jean brays, leaning against the post of his bunk. “You want me to get you some warm milk? You need your mama?”  

“Jean —”  Marco hisses, but it’s too late.  Eren sees red; blood red, blood, his mother crushed in a merciless fist, snapped up by merciless, horrible, grinning jaws, his mother dyed red by the setting sun and then by her own innards, his  mother —  

He screams and flies off the bed, past the grasp of Armin’s fingers, right at Jean. He has him on the rough floor, flailing fists barely blocked by Jean’s upraised arms. He beats him until Jean’s as red as his mother. Someone screams, “He’s going to kill him!” but Eren can’t hear them over the pounding blood in his ears and the pounding of his fists against Jean’s face, he can’t hear anything except his own shrill screaming voice.  

He kicks at Jean even after Reiner pulls him off. “You open your mouth about her again!” he spits, bare heel catching Reiner’s shin, arms struggling against Reiner’s hold. “I dare you, bastard! You open your mouth about her again and you’ll wish I’d killed you!”  

He forgets all about Marco. He forgets all about the dream and the dread.  

*  

"What’d you do to Marco?" Jean demands, shoving Eren hard against the rough wood panels on the barracks.   

"Ow, fuck!"  Eren hisses and shoves immediately back, scowling. "I dunno, what’d I fucking do to that Marco kid? I haven’t fucking touched him, asshole!" He snaps, and shoves Jean again when he crowds into his space.  

"He’s been in a fucking huff because you forgot his birthday —!" Eren gapes before Jean can get any further, kicks him hard in the shin.  

"Why the fuck would I give a shit about his birthday?" He sneers. "You wanna waste your time with that go ahead. Why’d he give a shit either way?"  

Jean leans back and looks Eren up and down with the kind of snide expression Eren hates the most. "I wonder why he wanted to waste his time being your friend." He leaves it at that, walking away.  

Eren doesn’t know why he should feel like shit forgetting the birthday of some kid he’s only known a few weeks, but something about Jean’s last words rankle, and he can’t allow that.  

He’s on kitchen duty that night, and he sets aside some ingredients to make a bun special. He can’t scrape up much from army issue supplies, so the bun is small, the letter M pricked artistically through the top and glazed.  

He wraps it carefully in a napkin and drops it on Marco’s tray as he passes him by to sit with Armin and Mikasa. He pauses at the edge of the table where Marco looks up at him quizzically, carefully unwrapping the sad little bun.  

"I dunno what you like so I made you that. Congratulations on living another year, that’s something, I guess." He turns away, but Marco grabs the hem of his shirt and tugs him back.  

"This means a lot to me, thank you." He smiles earnestly, and Eren is about to shake it off with a terse whatever, but Marco doesn’t let him go. "I’m really glad you remembered, Eren."  

Well, Eren sure as hell isn’t going to tell him he didn’t remember so much as Jean gave him a hard time. Not when Marco is smiling so sweetly. He nods and says, "yeah, happy birthday," and moves over to his friends.   

*  

“I’m a blacksmith. Well. A Blacksmith’s son.” Marco joins him on the barracks porch when everyone else deserts him, when Mikasa and Armin know it’s best to leave him alone. Marco’s tone implies he’s not really looking for conversation; he’s speaking for the sake of speaking, soothing words and soothing tone.  Eren listens despite his black mood. “My dad told me I would have been a good blacksmith.” He holds out his palm, large, work calloused. Eren’s own palms are hard and marked from his years in the land fill. “I had the muscles for it, but I was a bit too rough with the metal.”  

Eren has a hard time believing gentle Marco can be too hard with anything, but he has a workers hands; the kind of hands that can wrap around a man’s neck and snap it. “So why are you here if you had a trade?”  

“I didn’t get to finish my training.” Marco gives him a thin lipped expression, gazing at the setting sun on the training grounds. “Anyway, I’m too clumsy and not nearly artistic enough to be a blacksmith, so I figured I’d try my luck at being a soldier.” He smiles, and the smile tells Eren that his apparent clumsiness isn’t the reason at all; either way he’s lying, Marco has a sort of lumbering grace reserved for large animals and fairytale giants. “At least I get an education out of it.”  

“You’re a good soldier.”  Eren says, drawing his knees up to his chest and resting his chin on them. “You got heart.”  

Marco laughs softly. His fingers twitch, then come up to rest, firm and warm on his shoulder. “Hearing that from you of all people really sounds like a compliment.”  Eren doesn’t think he has heart. Just a goal and a fire that he can’t diminish, nor does he want to. Marco stands, squeezes his shoulder a bit, warm, hard, heavy- handed palm, and turns back to the barracks. “Come in quick before you catch cold. You can brood inside where it’s warm. I’ll have something hot waiting for you.”  

Eren only sits outside a few moments longer, contemplating the lingering warmth of his shoulder, and in his chest.  

*  

"What do you know about cooking?" Sasha's long handled wooden spoon jabs under his nose, and Eren blinks at her before knocking the spoon away and donning the regulation apron, inspecting the few sorry potatoes and carrots the cadets on shopping duty managed to procure. "That was a serious question, Jaeger."  

"I know what my mother taught me." He snaps back, and begins peeling the potatoes. "We'll make stew. It'll fill up everybody."  

Sasha eyes him warily, and begins chopping beef generously donated by Shadis. "Food is important." Sasha says, and Eren makes an agreeing noise, but decides not to listen to her. "I’m serious, Jaeger. Delicious things bring people together, make them happy." She inspects her chunks of beef and chops them up even smaller. "That means we have to try hard to make this delicious."  

"I try hard at everything I do." Eren replies, rooting around in the cupboards for a big pot to start the stew in. Sasha laughs at that, and runs out side to pump water for the broth. Someone bangs into the kitchens, and sets a crate down on the counter.  

"Eren!" Marco chirps, and beams at him. "Lookit what Jean's mom donated to us!" He pops open the crate to reveal beans, and Eren gasps.  

"This must’ve cost her a fortune!" He runs his fingers through the beans, thinks of how many of the other cadets he could feed well with a whole crate of them. "This could literally feed us for a week."  

"I heard Jean’s mom is in good with the head of Trost’s main trading company. Something like they were childhood sweethearts?" Marco pats the crate. "When she came to drop it off, she said she'd bring more gifts whenever she can."  

"What a nice lady."  Eren murmurs, resting his forehead against the edge of the crate and breathing deeply. He bites his lip, and when he’s sure he won’t cry, says, ”you’re officially on kitchen duty. Wash these beans, maybe a bucket full, and come add them to this stew."  

Sasha walks back in then, and nearly drops her water to screech, "beans! We're putting them in the stew right, oh, please say we are; stew without beans is like —"  

"We're putting in some, relax."  Eren sighs, stoking the fire inside the cast iron stove and setting the soup pot atop it.  

"Yahoo!" Sasha hurries over to dump the water into the pot, all the while muttering, "and tomorrow we'll have been soup, and the day after that —" Eren stops listening.  

Sasha’s mouth waters when she dishes out each serving of stew. "Eren," she whines. "When do we—"  

"After everyone else has had a serving." He rolls his eyes, and looks at the pot as it grows closer to empty. They managed to spread it far, so he dishes up three plates as soon as Sasha cheers when the line finishes. Sasha takes her plate and hurries out to the mess hall. Eren’s content to eat right there in the kitchen, but he doesn’t expect Marco to stay and join him.  

"The stew’s great." He says softly, spooning more into his mouth.  Eren shrugs. "You and Sasha make a pretty great team in the kitchen."  

"Are you trying to butter me up for something?" Eren’s eyes narrow at him. "Cause if you’re still hungry, stew’s right there. Don’t need to kiss my ass for seconds."  

Marco laughs a sharp and loud guffaw. "No, just making conversation. I like the stew, and I find that weird."  Eren quirks an eyebrow at him, sets into his bowl. "When I was a kid, I didn’t like carrots, didn’t like beans. Drove my mom crazy. Now, I don’t have a choice." He gestures at his mostly finished plate of stew. "If I don’t like it, I don’t eat."  

Eren thinks it's charming, really, that Marco learns this in relation to carrots, beans, all those things that, when he was in the landfill, he might have killed a man for. He holds his tongue, and enjoys the way real food, not gruel, fills his belly and leaves him heavy.   

*  

"Do you ever get sick of spinning all that bullshit?"  Eren grinds out, tossing down his pencil to glare at Marco.   

"I was just asking if you needed help on that assignment —" Marco defends weakly, holding up his hands. Truth be told, Marco’s never been afraid of him before. In the first few weeks the other recruits blanched at him, at the savage things he said. But not Marco. It feels a little satisfying to see him scared now. "I don’t know what you mean —"  

"The fuck you don’t."  Eren interrupts, slamming his palm down on the solid wood. Marco jumps a little. "It’s bad enough we have one sugar sweet goody-goody around here, trying to make friends with everything that breathes. We don’t need another one. Either cut the crap, or get the fuck outta my face."  

Marco slumps down into the seat across from him. This late, the common room is empty. There’s no one around to defend Marco from Eren’s tirade. He’s quiet for a moment before he laughs, the sound barking loud in the stillness. "You don’t waste words at all, do you, Eren." Eren waits, and Marco’s smiles fades, honey brown eyes watching him in the guttering light of his solitary candle. "So you don’t like me, because of the way I act?"  

"Could like you plenty if you didn’t smile like a snake in the grass." Eren leans back in his chair, crossing his arms, and Marco thinks on this. "You wanna get into the top ten, the MP, I get that. You wanna live the high life, fine. But don’t lie through your teeth and spin bullshit about wanting to work for the king, or wanting to help people. You wanna do something for yourself, save your own skin, fucking say so." He pauses, waits until Marco meets his eyes. "You’re allowed to be a sly son of a bitch, Marco. But don’t go pretending you’re not."  

"Jean said he wanted to live a cushy life in the inner city and you fought him for it."  

"Yeah, but Jean’s an asshole. But at least he was honest. If there’s anything I can respect about him, it’s that."  Marco barks another laugh, and Eren bares his teeth a little by way of a smile. “Don’t tell him I said that.”  

"Can I be honest with you, then?" He asks after a second. Eren nods slowly, taken aback by Marco’s sudden earnestness, the kind of sweet sincerity he’d first found attractive about Marco. "I don’t care about dying. It’s the money."  Eren blinks and Marco rubs his hand over the back of his neck, eyes fixed on the table. "My dad died a couple years before the fall. My ma couldn’t keep up the business by herself, we moved to Strohess and she became a maid in the households of the same fucking MP I’m trying so hard to be one of." Eren feels a little overwhelmed at the sudden flood of emotion in Marco’s voice. There’s anger, old and raw and picked at. He knows that anger; he hears it in his own voice. "They live like lords, Eren, while my ma works herself to the bone scrubbing their fucking floors. She’s better than that. Is it bad that I just want her to have more than that?"  

"No." Eren breathes softly. "It’s not bad to want that at all."  

"Then do you get why I need to make it to the top ten so badly?" His hands are fists on the table, his shoulders hunched and tight. Anyone else might have reached across to touch his fists until they loosen, ease those shoulders. Eren just looks.  

"I don’t care if you wanna learn to fly, Marco. Stop pretending to be something you’re not." He bends to pick up his pencil from the floor, skimming over his assignment instructions. "People would like the real you. I do."   

*  

Mikasa snarls like an animal when Annie grabs hold of her scarf, yanking her close and kneeing her. Eren sighs and shakes his head. He warned Annie not to go for the scarf, but Annie’s a fighter through and through, and to her the scarf is an obvious vulnerability; a handhold and a weapon.  

Mikasa snarls again, brings Annie down with her, and the circle of the audience grows larger as they watch them go at it, scrabbling at each other viciously in  the light dusting of snow and sand. Marco jostles his way to Eren’s side, head tipping in confusion. "Wouldn’t it have been smarter to take the scarf off before the fight?"  

"She never takes it off."  Eren answers drolly, watches Mikasa dig her elbow viciously into Annie's side. Marco gives him a questioning look, and he shrugs. "She’s sentimental." He thinks that her birthday is coming up, he really ought to get her a new scarf. Her old one is ratty and worn, speckled all over with her sad attempts to mend it. She’s gross , too, and doesn’t let him wash it. But he isn’t going to tell Marco any of this; it’d probably embarrass Mikasa right into her grave if everyone knew she’s absolutely filthy.  

“Looks like they’re getting a little…” Marco searches for a kind way to say evil when Mikasa pulls Annie’s hair, and Annie’s teeth sink into her arm. There are scratches wherever there’s exposed skin on both of them, bruises blooming on Annie’s fair face. “Shouldn’t you try to stop them? They like you, they’d probably stop.”  

Eren shrugs, watches Annie roll Mikasa over to punch her square in the jaw, only to be bucked off by a wild cant of Mikasa’s hips, a knee promptly following to smash into her ribs. He watches the fight because it’s been a long time coming, really. Mikasa and Annie have been circling each other like prowling wolves, hackles raised and eyes aglow in the shadows. Who is he to stop the release of all that tension? And besides, the fight is good learning material. Mikasa’s a good fighter, and Annie is the best, and watching them fight is like watching a battle of the gods. Who is he to stop that either?  

“Nah.” He says shortly, eyes fixed. He shrugs again when Marco looks at him with growing alarm when Annie makes an animal sound, and Mikasa screeches in pain and rage. “Girls are weird, you’ll see. They’ll be best fucking friends after this.” Marco doesn’t believe him, and Eren shrugs it off. “I need to go to town, wanna come with?”  

They return, later, with a scarf, as vibrant red as spilt blood on fresh snow, and a honey glazed pastry split between them, licking their fingers. Marco smiles and thanks him for the treat, and Eren  shrugs it off. He’s in a good mood, and tending Mikasa’s bruises won’t ruin that. Especially not when he knows her eyes will spark with a fire behind them when he presents her the scarf, wraps it around her face like he had once a long time ago.    

*  

Shadis' bellowing certainly doesn’t help Marco and Eren disentangle any faster. The wire of the maneuver gear is wrapped around his ankle, cutting off his circulation, and he’s pretty sure Marco has a concussion from how hard they smacked into the tree together. He's bleeding from the temple, and Eren has to grab his swords and jam them awkwardly back into his gear before he can drop them and skewer one of the idiots watching below. He disengages Marco's gear so it retracts and his full weight slumps, boneless, onto Eren.  

"Hey hey, stay awake there, Marco, you’re too heavy." Marco mumbles an apology into the side of his neck, and struggles to lift his head. They flop onto a thick tree branch, Eren digging around in his pockets for the standard first aid kit. "Sit up for me, gotta get this cut cleaned up before it gets infected."  

Marco blinks at him, running a thumb over Eren’s impressive bruise. "What about you?"  

"My head’s hard and I’ve never been sick a day in my life. I’ll be fine." Marco hums a disagreement, but lets Eren clean the wound, fingers firm and bandages winding tight.   

Marco rubs a thumb over Eren’s bruised forehead again, frowning with concern. "You have such gentle hands. Steady and kind."  

"Doctor’s kid."  Eren says brusquely, and checks Marco over for any wounds more serious than a couple of ugly bruises. He’s fine though, and Eren pats him once and lets the teacher who has come to "rescue" them take over. He looks at his palms. He notes again how tough and calloused they are; he’s never once considered them kind.  

He visits Marco later in the medical wing, sets a little cup of daisies on the side table because Marco appreciates thoughtful little gestures like those. The nurse has him hopped up on something, and Marco grins dopily at him, blinking blearily at the flowers.  “Did you make sure to get checked out too?” he worries needlessly, reaching out to touch the bruise that’s already faded to a mottled yellow and green.  

Eren smirks at him, rapping his temple with his knuckles. “Don’t worry. My head’s hard, and I’ve never been sick a day in my life.” He repeats. But that doesn’t stop him from enjoying Marco’s fussing.   

*  

It’s Marco who follows Eren out into the night, rumpled sleep shirt and sleep tousled hair growing damp beneath misting rain. "Where are you going?" He asks sleepily, withdrawing back beneath the eaves as his bare toes meet water puddles.  

"I just need to breathe." That wakes Marco up, and Eren sort of hates that Marco’s just so good at reading people. Marco dips back into the barracks to pull on a pair of the closest shoes he can find. He comes back in Reiner’s slippers, and they’re almost comically too big for him.  Eren is bare foot, sleep shirt growing uncomfortably damp in the drizzle, hair matting down. "Stay there," he sighs tiredly. "You don’t need to follow me."  

Marco steps defiantly out into the rain, holding out his hand to Eren like one would a wild dog. "Come on." He leads him to the linen closet behind the barracks, brings down a towel to drape over Eren’s hair and ruffles, drying it for him.  

"I’m not a kid." Eren says roughly, but the touch is good, and he’s on the verge of tears.  

"You act like one, I’ll treat you like one." Marco returns. They are silent a beat, just the sound of the rain on the roof and ruffling hair, the smell of clean laundry and water. "What’s wrong?"  

"Nightmare." Eren returns shortly. He doesn’t know how to explain, doesn’t have any images to relay, not that he wants to. There is only residual fear and the desperate need to get out up away, to breathe. He felt trapped. Here with Marco in the linen closet, he feels fine. Better at least.   

Marco’s arms are big, soft and warm around his shoulders, unexpected, and unexpectedly welcome. Who was the last person he hugged like this, and how long ago was it? Marco’s nose rests at the nape of his neck, his breath warm, his eyelashes fluttering, and Eren shivers at the sudden jolt of pleasure from the touch. He melts into it, and Marco holds him tighter.  

He can’t move, can’t breathe, can’t see for the towel still draped over his head. His world is fluffy white, darkness, and Marco. But this doesn’t feel like being trapped, it feels like being safe.  

    
*  

“Does ‘suicidal bastard’ bother you?” Marco asks after Jean firsts calls Eren that to his face, the words shot like bullets, meant to hurt. He stands in the shade of the weapons shed before Eren who sits on a low bench. He’s large, by all rights he should loom over him, but Marco hunches his shoulders, tries to get small. Eren takes up another rifle, easing the cleaning stick down the barrel and scrubbing. He shrugs. There’s not a thing in the world Jean or anyone else can say that can break his skin; nothing they can say that will hurt him any more than he’s already been hurt. “I can ask them to stop, you know, if it hurts your feelings.”  

“Nah, I know I’m pretty weird.” He sets the cleaned rifle in the crate by his foot and takes up another one. “Being called suicidal bastard just means everyone else acknowledges it too.”  

Marco’s mouth pinches as he looks at Eren and scuffs his boot in the sand before sitting down beside him, hunched shoulders and careful hands, though his thighs brush Eren’s on the bench. “I don’t think you’re weird. Or crazy. Just driven.” Eren’s glances up at him and huffs a little, shrugs again because sure, that’s nice, but he knows he’s the only one who wants to go up against the titans, wants to battle those odds of death and fucking annihilate–  “I don’t want you to feel ostracized by everyone else.”  

Eren stares, snorts softly, picks up another rifle to clean. “I’m used to—“  

“I don’t want that either.”  

Eren blinks. Marco gives him a hard expression. It’s strange on Marco’s friendly face, so Eren blinks again. “Marco…” He says, but trails off because he doesn’t know how to continue. How does he say that on a good day he wishes he could either gag everyone or plug his ears, that being alone is not the scariest thing that could happen to him, that he’s content to be angry Eren Jaeger, that suicidal bastard, and sit with Mikasa and Armin at the back of the mess hall with no one else to bother him.  

He doesn’t know how to explain that when Marco’s trying so hard, looking at him with wide, earnest eyes, saying earnest words, that same earnestness tensing his shoulders and drawing lines around his mouth.  

“If something’s hurting your feelings, let me know, and I’ll make it stop.”  

Eren smiles a little, pats Marco’s leg and goes back to polishing the barrel of the next gun. “It’s nothing, Marco. In fact, I think it’s funny.”  

“Okay,” he says slowly, patting his leg right back, hesitant and gentle despite the largeness of his palms. “If you’re sure.”  

*  

The recycled dress uniform fits Eren a little loosely around the shoulders, too long in the arms. He thinks he’s better off than Marco, who takes shallow breaths to avoid popping the dull gold buttons up the front of his jacket.  

They stand at the entrance to the market like freak shows to be gawked at, their collection tin echoing hollowly with a couple sad coins rattling around. Marco beams beatifically at passing citizens, and Eren hates this particular smile on him. It looks slimy and dishonest, and when he tries to smile and explain to pedestrians the importance of donating to the academy, he looks the most dishonest, like a snake. It doesn’t suit sweet looking Marco; but then, anyone who didn’t know him would think that slimy smile cherubic.   

Someone tugs his pant leg, and Eren  glances down to see a little girl. He kneels down to her, smiles a little. “What cha all dressed up for, mister?" She inquires, twisting her fingers in the ragged lace of her skirt.  

"We're asking people for money donations." he explains softly, feels his smile widen as she blinks wide black eyes at him. “We collect money so we can buy things, like food."  

"Oh." She looks around and runs off.  Eren stands and watches her tug her mother’s skirt. She runs back and offers a little coin. "Here. I hope you get a lot mister." She runs back to her mother, and Eren drops the coin into the collections tin where it rattles sadly with the others.  

"Ha!" Someone crows loudly. Marco stops chatting with a matronly looking woman to see who is making such a commotion. A fat stall operator crows again, jeering at them. "Why would I waste my hard earned money on some scrawny runts playing at war?" He yells loudly, drawing the attention of other vendors and market goers. “All you survey corps cadets—"  

"We don’t just join the survey corps."  Eren snaps. He shakes Marco’s placating hand off his shoulder.  "The academy teaches us trades— skills. Where would you be without stone masons or black smiths or engineers to maintain the walls in the stationary guard, huh?" He advances on the man, shoving Marco off him to grab him by the collar, dragging the man down to his height. "The academy offers kids a future, you selfish, greedy--"  

"Eren!" Marco shouts, grabbing his fist and hauling him back into a shaded corner of the market. His grip is tight and unforgiving; Eren wishes he had Marco’s hands, wishes he could tear into that man–  ”Eren ." Marco says against his ear, chest warm against his back. "Stop."  

"But he—"  

"I know. Stop." Eren chews his lips, but Marco doesn’t let go of his wrist no matter how he twists. He doesn’t let go of his wrist even after he stops fighting him. He doesn’t let go of his wrist when they go back to the collection tin. He wonders if Marco knows that had he let him go, he might have hunted that man down and torn his throat out.   

*  

"You really wanna do this?" Eren lowers his center of gravity, raises his fists the way Annie taught him. Marco’s stance by comparison is much more rigid; he’s never sparred with Eren before, so he still follows the rules the instructors have given to the letter. Eren doesn’t fight like Annie, prefers something more like brawling, but that’s probably why he’s never beaten Annie, either.  

"Sure. I wanna learn, it’s gotta be from the best right?" He shrugs before falling back into stance, mouth cracking to a dimpled grin. "And Annie’s busy, so I guess you'll do."  

Eren swipes his feet out from under him for that, and Marco goes down laughing. He makes a valiant effort to pull Eren down too, but Eren just pins him and holds him still. Marco’s still laughing, and Eren hates not to be taken seriously. He goes to change his hold into something more threatening, and gasps when Marco flips him, sitting heavy on his chest, a laugh waiting to be barked out while his eyes spark happily.  

Eren squirms beneath him, bucks his hips up in the hopes of upsetting Marco’s balance. But Marco’s heavy, and his thick thighs keep Eren pinned precisely where he wants him. “What’s that about being the best?” He says, leaning down to mock Eren.  Eren jerks his head up, connecting with Marco’s nose with a crack.  

Marco reels back stunned, blood leaking from his nose. His grin then is savage, a strange expression on Marco’s mouth. “You’re not playing fair.”  

“All’s fair in love and war.”  Eren replies, squirming beneath Marco, who looks dazed and good, blood leaking to his mouth, forehead bruised.  

“Yeah?” Marco grins, there’s blood on his teeth, and he pins Eren’s arms to his side.  Eren’s breath catches, and there’s something real, honest, about Marco above him with blood running into his mouth, a wolf that’s ripped out the throat of a rabbit. There’s something so beautiful about that savagery, Eren doesn’t even mind being the rabbit.  

*  

The common room is warm, the fire built up, the snow melted in dark puddles by the door. Despite that, there’s a gloom over the room’s occupants as they study frantically for first term exams.  Eren  balances three mugs, robbed somewhat of warmth from the trek back from the kitchens, and his books over to the table where Marco sits with his head in his hands, staring as though he’ll understand it more the wider he can get his eyes. Armin is trying patiently to explain the concepts to him.  

“Let’s take a break, before Marco hurts himself.” He hands them each a mug. Armin chuckles softly, sinking into his seat to read over his books.  

“I don’t know how you two do it.” Marco mutters, flipping through the pages without really seeing them. “I’m worthless at book stuff. Put something in my hands and I’ll fix it in a heartbeat. Tell me to memorize the properties of leaves and I’ll blank.” His fist smacks down against the paper, crumpling it.  

Armin gives him a comforting smile. “We all have our strengths.” He says, and gestures to Marco’s mug, to drink before it goes completely cold.   

“I’ll never get into the top ten with theoretical marks this low.” Marco mourns, letting his head fall to his book with a rustle and a thunk.   

“Why don’t you become an engineer? Or a blacksmith?” Armin suggests softly. “It’s alright if—“  

“No. I have to make it to the MP.”  Eren blinks, and understands, but Marco doesn’t look up at either of them, glaring his frustration into his mug. He’s silent a moment, slurping at his mug, before he pastes on a smile. “What about you two? What are you aiming for?”  

“I originally wanted to be a part of the Survey Corps’ Medical Division.”  Eren says, and doesn’t think too hard on that old, childish dream. It sits in his heart, a memory of the desire to help those stronger than he, to heal them. “Armin wants to be a researcher here at the school.”  

Armin sputters and blushes, waving his hands. “I don’t think I’m gonna do that anymore. You know? It’s just—” he stops, goes red and anxious, hiding it with a long gulp from his mug.  Eren just rolls his eyes, and looks to Marco, where he broods sullenly. “Never mind that. Why don’t we move on to first aid, Eren can help you with that.”  

Marco turns to him with a resigned sigh, flipping open his first aid textbook. “It’s the anatomy section that’s bringing my mark down, I can’t—“  

“First of all, never say can’t. You know I hate that word.”  Eren snaps, snapping his notebook cover against the table. Marco jumps a little, and demures, rubbing at the back of his neck bashfully. “Second, I don’t help people who don’t make an effort. And third, start with what you know best.” He opens up the notebook, where a diagram has been perfectly copied into the pages, clearly labelled, with a near perfect grade written in the teacher’s hand at the top of the page.  

“Okay.” Marco sighs, and studies the diagram, trying to list from memory the function of each organ.  Eren corrects him each time he stumbles or messes something up, has him repeat it over and over again, until Marco starts to relay definitions with confidence. He notices his nose wrinkles when he tries to remember things, and it’s a cute little gesture that amuses Eren  each time he sees it.  

“See?”  Eren says when Marco manages to fill out a diagram with no help from him. “You can do it. The only one stopping you is you.”   

“Thanks.” Marco murmurs softly.  Eren gets up and grabs their cups to refill them. He leaves Armin there, tutoring Marco on Wallist History, and shivers as he steps back into the cold. Later, when Marco is doing what he does best; practicing for the practical exams, Eren will ask Armin to explain the formulas for 3DMG theory, to go over the concepts of inertia and momentum and velocity for the millionth time. He’s also fairly sure he still won’t understand no matter what way Armin explains it.  

For now, he’ll go get them more cider, watch Marco puzzle through practice essays for Wallist History and memorizing lists of organs and their functions with that cute and confused scrunch to his nose.  


	2. Second Year

In summer the barracks are the worst. They all strip naked to sleep, laying as far from each other in their cots as they can manage, some even braving the rough wood floor and the threat of splinters in the hopes of keeping cool. The slats of their barracks side-windows and the door are thrown wide, a boot shoved in the jamb to prop it open. Someone always complains about bugs, but it’s either bugs on their junk as they try desperately not to breathe so much that the air gets sticky, or suffocating in the sweltering heat. 

They sneak to the pond every night when the others are unconscious, or too hot to care where they go. At first, it’s just the four of them; Eren, Armin, Bert and Reiner. Eventually Connie joins; he makes an excellent look out, sneaking them past the trainers on their way out and back in. Then Marco and Jean join in. 

The trek isn’t a short one, and beneath the trees, the air is much cooler. Eren almost wants to sleep right there, nestled in pine needles with his cloak thrown over him, and he’s tempted to slip away, but Armin chatters excitedly about a book he found tucked away in the library, and the warmth of that is enough to keep him tethered to the rest of the group. 

The lake water is absolutely frigid, and rather than beat around the bush Eren dives right in and swims about. When he comes up again, the air sits like a mantle on his shoulders. Armin is mostly content to let his feet dapple in the water. Bert and Jean and Reiner, being poor swimmers, stay in the shallow end. Connie likes to collect rocks from the lake bottom and skip them. 

Only Marco swims out to join where he treads water. It’s a full moon, and silver light turns the rippling water jewel-like, gathers on Marco’s eyelashes and turns them an utterly unreal colour.  

"Thought you were a city boy?" Eren says, and lets himself lay back in the water, lets himself float away. Marco laughs gently.  

"Visited my cousins in the country every month till—" he pauses. "I’d like to think I’m the perfect mix of a country and city boy." 

"It’s true, you never complained about shovelling horse shit like a certain Trost princess." 

"Hear you talking shit, Jaeger!" Jean yells from the shore. "You’re fucking lucky I can’t swim, or I’d drown you." 

Marco laughs, but Eren doesn’t really need to reply to the threat. He thinks on Marco’s words. He wonders if Marco’s cousins died when the wall fell, but has the good sense not to ask. If he thinks too long on it, he'll get angry. 

He doesn’t need that now, doesn’t need anger when Marco is half heartedly talking Jean down from a brawl that, so long as Eren’s in the water, he'll lose. Marco’s voice is muffled through the water, warm and tinged with laughter. Eren’s content like this. And he savours it, because he knows it won’t last long.  

* 

The orphanage is in the same dilapidated state Eren left it in. The front is a little better since he put the shutters back on their hinges and gave the stone a fresh coat of white wash, but he knows around back, weeds grow up in the vegetable garden. Marco pulls a face as they walk up to it, while Mikasa carries on up the front steps to grab the brass knocker. “You used to live here?” he looks up and down the street skeptically, and Eren shrugs. 

“Armin’s grandfather left us here after the fall; hoped we would get better meals. But there were kids younger than us, and we were taking up the beds, so we joined him at the landfills.” Children spill out of the front door into the street, running straight for his legs, reaching up for him to lift them. Marco looks rather disgruntled, before laughing aloud at the sight of Mikasa swinging two little girls around in her arms, a small, rare smile on her face. 

“Eren!” They squeal, and they pool around Marco too, who obligingly lifts a little boy with a perpetually runny nose. Eren counts heads, frowns. 

“Where’s Greta?” The children grow quiet at that, and dread sits heavy on his tongue. “Did she get sick?” They nod. Eren sighs and shakes his head. “Poor Greta.” But there’s nothing else he can say on the matter. He shepherds the children back into the orphanage, and accepts the headmistress’ kisses on both his cheeks with embarrassed grace. 

“Good to see you again, Eren.” Headmistress practically sings. “Will you be cooking us dinner again tonight, or have you fixed your eyes on other chores?” 

“I brought help with me today, so this place is gonna look brand new by the time we’re done with it.” He gestures back at Marco and Mikasa. He grins when neither of them escape the headmistress’ kisses. He opens his rucksack to reveal onions that have started some shoots, and potatoes doing the same. “I’ll attack the vegetable garden. You get Mikasa to do any heavy lifting you need. And Marco has the cleverest fingers in the academy, he can fix just about anything.” He punches Marco’s arm when he blushes, gathers his spade and garden vegetables, and heads around back. 

Mikasa ends up chopping firewood for a while. She loses her shirt and academy jacket, baring all her glistening muscles, as she swings the ax down and splinters the wood. When she’s done that, she recruits an army of orphans to bring her all the rugs in the place, and takes to beating those. The little ones join her, laughing and sneezing and carrying on until they get bored. 

Marco finds himself on the roof, fixing the leaky patches. He shed his shirt too, gold-brown skin bared to the morning sun. Eren’s glad he brought Marco along; he’s certain the headmistress will set him to the some of the leaky pipes he couldn’t make any sense of.  

Eren blinks when he finds himself joined in the vegetable garden by Helga, Greta’s sister. She’s close to twelve now, too old to still be in the orphanage. She’s quiet, burying her fingers in the soil, plucking at weeds. He says nothing, neither does she, and together they finish the weeding up quickly. 

“I wanna bury them.” Helga whispers, and Eren obligingly digs holes in the softened dirt deep enough for the vegetables, and hands them to Helga to bury. She whispers to each vegetable, but he doesn’t know what she says, and doesn’t ask. 

“This is your vegetable garden.” He says. “You take care of it while I’m away.” Helga nods solemnly, and Eren pets her hair. 

Later, Marco and Eren are seated at the large kitchen table. Dinner simmers on the stove. Marco has the pieces of a clock spread out before him, puzzling over them. A while ago, Mikasa came in with a crate of lanterns and said the headmistress wanted them filled with oil, so Eren does that, lining up each lantern when he’s through with the task. 

“So you just volunteer here, every weekend?” Marco broaches. There are children asleep at their feet beneath the table. Helga dozes there too, holding onto Eren’s ankle with one hand as though afraid he’ll disappear. “It’s nice of you, but not really something I’d expect.” 

“I like kids.” Eren says, and fiddles with a stubborn wick of a lantern. “I like their innocence. But I can’t stand the thought of them growing up with less just because they’re orphans. They deserve to live in a nice house like everyone else. I don’t know.” Eren sighs. Marco blinks at him, and Eren gets the distinct impression he understands what he means. “I don’t want these kids to feel forgotten. I haven’t forgotten them. They matter to me.” 

Marco smiles, shakes his head, laughs. “You amaze me, Eren Jaeger. You take me by surprise completely, every time you open your mouth.” 

“That a bad thing?” 

“Not in the slightest.” 

* 

Armin whimpers for his grandfather each time Eren passes the cool wet cloth over his forehead. Eren sighs roughly, tries to get him to slurp down a thin broth that he won’t throw back up. The fever is burning Armin up, and Eren doesn’t know what to do beyond keeping him as cool and as comfortable as he can manage. 

Outside, the wind howls briskly. Behind him, Mikasa moans, under the sway of her own fever. She grips the back of Eren’s shirt in a vice, refuses to let him go to change the water or get more food. The room itself is full of all the moaning sick, and the stench of it is bad enough to make Eren wrinkle his nose. He wets Mikasa’s creased brow, and a hand lands on his shoulder. 

“Go now.” Annie says shortly, and pries Mikasa’s hand from his shirt to take into her own. “Get something to eat, some rest. I’ll watch them for you.” 

Eren feels his eyelids droop. He looks to Armin, his flushed face and panting mouth, and Mikasa’s creased expression and moving lips. “I need to stay with them. I need—” 

“You need at least an hour’s sleep and a decent meal. You’re running on hot air, Jaeger.” Eren doesn’t even have the energy to bluster. “You’re the only one who’s good enough at first aid to be of any help. All the nurses are sick.” Eren looks around at the room full of sick cadets. Ymir sits by the door over Krista’s bed; Bert and Reiner do what they can for the cadets by the windows, speaking quietly as they pass each other. 

Annie’s eyes look crystal clear in the faded winter light that spills through the windows. Eren nods slowly. He moves towards the kitchens on autopilot, but there’s no one there; everyone is either sick or tending the sick, and there is no time to make anything more complicated than hearty stews for those that still have the stomach for it. A big pot of broth keeps warm by the fire that now burns low. Eren tosses a couple logs on it, lending light to the winter dark room. 

The kitchen is strange without his friends in it; Eren eats quickly, in a hurry to get back to his friends. Ymir strides through the kitchen doors, opening the back door to toss a small tub of water out into the snow, though she makes no move to the pump for more. She sits down right by him. “Want you to take a look at Krista when you get back in.” She says. 

“I’ll make my rounds again.” He’s strangely glad for Ymir’s company. They’ve never been close, but he thinks that’s precisely what he likes about her. Everything about her is true, and she knows how to sit, and be still and quiet as a waiting wolf. 

“How many of them are gonna make it?” Ymir asks softly. Eren frowns, thinks of the beds where some of his comrades have gone completely still, barely breathing, not drinking, wasted and weak. The fever will take them, and there will be people, when they’ve recovered, who will be sleeping in their cots alone, one side cold and empty. 

“Not all of them.” Eren says, because it’s the truth. “Help me carry back some broth.” 

Ymir watches him check over Krista. He checks her pulse, her temperature, spoons her some yarrow tea. But there’s nothing else he can do for her really, and Ymir hates it and knows it, too. “She’s alright for now. Just keep trying to keep her cool, and come get me if there are any problems.” 

Everyone is pretty much the same. He pauses at last by Marco’s bed by the window. He’s murmuring in his sleep, caught up in fever dreams, restless and fidgeting. Eren spoons some tea into him, and settles down at his bed side, wiping his forehead. 

The winter sunlight has dimmed to the pale white light of afternoon, and it shines gently on Marco’s pallid, sweaty face. Eren blinks slowly at him, takes Marco’s hand in his; the palms are still warm with the fever, but he hopes perhaps he is starting to heal and fight it. He blinks slowly again, finds his eyes sandy and heavy, and rests his forehead against the sheets, breathing slowly. 

Distantly, he hears Reiner’s voice. “Should we move him?” 

“Leave him. Best to let him sleep.” Annie says. And then softer, “Damned idiot.” Eren sleeps soundly then.  

* 

"I think Mina has a crush on you." They’ve commandeered the watchtower, a blanket spread over their legs and a thermos of soup passed between them. 

"Yeah?" Eren says without much interest, eyes fixed on the stars, focussed on the length of Marco’s warm body against his side. He was pudgier when he first joined the academy, now he’s toned down, made of trained muscle and hardened flesh. "What makes you think that?" 

Perhaps Marco was expecting a more excited response, because his shoulders go lax, and he smiles gently. "I could tell when you took that splinter out of her finger. She was doing that thing with her cheek, you know?" Eren does know the gesture Marco speaks of, he'd noticed, but he’d been more concerned with the long sliver of wood in her hand. 

"She had a crush on Jean, too; can’t say much about her taste." Eren allows on the topic, and takes a long gulp of the soup. Marco laughs, a loud guffaw that cracks the night, and for the life of him Eren doesn’t know what’s so funny. 

"I think that’s precisely it." He says, and stifles another laugh behind his hand. "You take yourself so seriously, you’re so intense. I think..." Marco’s tone grows somber, and Eren blinks and looks at him, sees the stars in his honey coloured eyes reflected and fractured. "I think people enjoy the idea of being the one who makes you smile." 

Eren blinks again. Suddenly catching himself, Marco blinks and grows flustered. "That’s how girls think anyway."  

* 

"Mission is simple." Eren calls out. "We split into two groups. One to escort citizens to the gates, the other to cover the citizens on their retreat." He glances at the clock tower glimmering in the distance, squints. "The drill will start in a few minutes. Reiner, Annie, Jean, you’re with me. Mina, Thomas, Krista, Marco, you’ll escort the citizens to the gate. Let’s supervise a good retreat, we'll be covering five streets." 

"My little leader." Reiner grins, ruffling Eren’s hair playfully. Eren pushes him away, but Reiner just laughs and holds him round the shoulders. From the top of the wall, Trost spreads out beautiful, rose red roof tops in afternoon sunlight, the market bustling with activity. Jean bumps his shoulder on the other side, and Eren snarls at him while Jean gives a dopey grin. 

"We could turn this into a competition, y’know. Person who gets the most titans--" 

"Shut up, Jean, this isn’t a competition. Just do your job and cover the people on the ground—" Jean drags him away from Reiner, over to the edge of the Wall. 

"You’re not doing Marco any favours." He hisses, jerking his head at where Marco chats happily with Mina. Eren scowls. "The instructors will pay the most attention to the vanguard. If he’s not on it--" 

"Marco doesn’t need my help to make it to the top ten. He’s got skills plenty of his own." He crosses his arms and tips his head back to regard Jean. "I made my decision based on skill set. Marco’s best on the ground, with people. If you don’t like that, go offer him your position on the vanguard." 

Jean huffs, storming away from him. Reiner ventures over, places a hand on Eren’s shoulder. "He'll come around." 

"I don’t need him to come around, I need him to obey my orders without second guessing me." Reiner says nothing to that, just squeezes and moves back to Annie. The bell clangs out over the city. "Go!" He shouts, and dives off the wall at the first titan dummy that pops up. 

People file out of their homes, pushing each other, shouting. Eren doesn’t really have time to help the ground crew direct the masses as he swoops at another titan dummy. "Thomas!" He roars as he swings by. "Little girl, third storey—" he swoops again, dives for another titan dummy. 

Marco is a speck in the crowd that Eren has to squint to make out. Perhaps he hears the little girl left behind calling from the window; he zips to her rescue, throwing open the glass and scooping her into his arms. 

"Wait!" Eren calls, pausing at a wall, watching in horror as a titan dummy springs up, clipping Marco’s side, taking off one side of his gear. Annie kills the dummy, and Eren leaps to Marco, smashing their bodies into a rooftop, the girl safe between them. 

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" He demands, dropping his swords to grab Marco’s collar.  

"This girl—" he starts, but Eren snarls and shakes him hard. The little girl starts to cry. "Eren relax, it’s just a drill." 

"It’s not just a drill!" He snaps, shaking Marco again for good measure. "It’s never just a drill! You pull that shit here; you pull it when we're in the field. You can’t go running around acting like a hero. That kinda shit gets you killed. Your life isn’t some meaningless thing you can just throw away!" Marco blinks. "You nearly died just now!" 

"Yeah, but you saved me." He smiles sweetly, and Eren sighs, lets his fingers uncurl from the rough brown fabric of Marco’s jacket. There’s no arguing with Marco when he takes  _that_  stance. 

"I can’t save you every time. Though god help me, I can try." He stands, hopes that the others have managed without him and have moved on to the next street they need to clear. "There’s only enough room for one suicidal bastard in the 104th." Eren bares his teeth. "Get your gear fixed and get that little girl to her family, quick before the instructors start deducting marks." 

He pauses at the end of the roof, watches Annie and Reiner swing and glide in tandem further up the street, taking out titan dummies one at a time. "Did you do all that just to get extra points from the instructors?" Marco doesn’t answer, and Eren growls, kicking at a loose tile. "Then you resent me for putting you on the ground?" 

"Eren—" 

"I didn’t do it to hold you back. I did it to showcase your talents." He steps back to take a running leap at the next roof over. "But if you think stupid heroics are the only thing people will respect about you, you’re wrong. That’s not what I respect about you." 

He hopes Marco thinks about that long and hard. Later, he wonders why his admonition would matter to Marco at all, why he wants it to.  

* 

Eren waits by the back door of the mess hall, breathing in the smell of new grass and baking bread. He just needs to escape the noise and heat that comes with living in the barracks, constant unwanted company and movement. He takes a long gulp from a tall stein of ale, tips his head back against the rough wood and breathes. 

He starts when the back door slams open, and a tub of water splashes to the gravel. "Eren!" Marco gasps, just as startled as he is. "What are you doing back here?" He pauses, squints at him in the dark. "You okay?" 

"Yeah. Just needed space." Marco nods sagely, and kicks the tub back into the kitchen, standing in the yellow patch of lamplight spilling through the open door and backlighting him like a halo.  

"No Armin tonight?" He asks, and Eren shrugs.  

"He wanted to get some studying done without me talking his ear off." Marco chuckles warmly, and Eren sends a wan smile his way. "You on kitchen duty?" He gestures at the over sized apron Marco wears. 

Marco runs his hand over the back of his neck bashfully. "I volunteered. Working here sort of reminds me of home." Eren nods because he understands; he likes his duties in the first aids office, likes the smell of antibiotics and clean linen bandages for the same reason. "Ah, hold on." He darts back into the kitchens, the door falling shut behind him and leaving Eren to darkness.  

Confused, he takes another gulp of his ale and slaps at a persistent mosquito. Marco emerges a moment later, and holds out a bun under Eren’s nose. It’s been clumsily tied in a knot, and baked just a little too long, wrapped in a checkered tea cloth. "I was trying to recreate my mom's recipe but... It didn’t come out quite right." He smiles sheepishly. "Blacksmith’s son through and through." 

Eren takes it, and nibbles off a slightly less burnt end; it’s been glazed in honey, the crust is a little tough, but Eren knows next to nothing about good food; too used to surviving on anything remotely edible. Despite the compliments of the other cadets when he's on kitchen duty, he doesn't think his own cooking skills are something to brag about. "It’s good." He says, and takes another bite. He'll eat the whole damn thing, good or not, because he’s never once wasted food. 

Marco smiles. "You’re a good person, Eren." He says gently, and lays one hand on Eren’s shoulder. Eren blinks, chews slowly, but Marco says nothing more, just turns back inside with a warning to go inside before he catches cold.  

"Never been sick a day in my life." Eren says customarily. 

"Then don’t push your luck." Marco laughs, and the door closes on him. 

* 

Eren blinks when Marco sits down beside him, still laughing from a joke he shared from across the room, smile going soft and honey eyes glowing. He blinks again. "You’ve gotten taller." 

"Hate to tell you, but that’s a by-product of puberty." Marco flashes his teeth in a cheeky grin, and Eren just rolls his eyes. Puberty's been good to him, smoothed out his round face, giving him a definition and charisma the girls used to refer to as cute. Now, when they titter about Marco, cute isn’t the word they use. 

"Puberty does you any more kindness you'll have to beat Hannah back with a stick." He says drily. Marco laughs, sweet and boyish. Eren blinks at him again, and feels like an idiot when Marco smiles back. He’s attractive, he thinks, surprised at himself for thinking it and surprised at not noticing before. "Puberty does you anymore kindness you'll have to beat me back with a stick." 

Marco’s laugh becomes strange, like it’s stuck in his throat. His freckled cheeks grow rosy. Eren raises a brow at him and Marco just bumps him with his elbow. “You too.” Marco says awkwardly. He grins again, teeth and forced sweetness. “Don’t go getting any better looking or Mina won’t know what to do with herself.” 

At the end of the table, Mina sputters up her drink. “Marco Bodt!” She shrieks. “You shut your dirty mouth before I shut it for you!” Marco laughs and falls into light hearted banter, turning away from Eren though their arms remain close on the table. Connie picks up and tells Mina if she wants a good looking man, she need look no further. Eren sips at his cider, gone slightly cold, and thinks on the warm flush of Marco’s cheeks, the widening of gold eyes. 

He likes it; it’s a good look on Marco.  

* 

"This is the worst practical exam ever." Connie moans, slapping at mosquitoes idly, watching the flames. Eren doesn’t really agree, laying out his sleeping bag by the fire and settling on it, face warm in the fire light. They’ve certainly been told to do their best in the wild under worse conditions; a balmy spring night does not make the cut. 

"I hear the final exam is worse. People actually die during it." Reiner says, examining a crack in his canteen with disdain. Bert silently nudges him with his elbow, holding out his hand for the canteen.  

"Wow, way to lighten the mood." Connie leans back on his sleeping bag. 

"You scared, little Connie?" Ymir teases from the edge of the ring of light the fire provides. Her eyes glint like a feral cat. "Tell you what, during the final exam, I give you permission to hold my hand like a scared little baby." 

"Shut up, bitch--" 

Ymir’s eyes go hard and sharp, mouth stretching into a snarl. "What'd you just call me?" 

"Guys." Bert interrupts softly, but it goes ignored as Connie rears up, ready to brawl. Eren trips him as he passes, and Connie hits the ground cursing Eren’s name. 

"Cut it out, stop fooling around." He sighs, flopping back now that the danger of a fight has passed. Connie grumbles, but moves back to his sleeping bag. “Ymir, stop teasing him.” 

“Not my fault he’s easy to tease.” She scoffs. She makes herself comfortable, lying on her side, head propped up by her fist. “I’m dying of boredom here. Anyone know any good ghost stories? And Bert, if you tell that one about the lady in the castle again, I’m going to burn off my ears.” 

“But it was true.” Bert mutters. Reiner laughs and pats him on the shoulder. 

“I know a good one!” Connie exclaims, hand shooting up like he’s in a lecture hall. “There’s this—“ 

“Connie, the scariest thing to you is a passing look from Shadis.” Connie flips her off. Her eyes glint in the fire again as she looks around. She grins viciously. “Eren. You tell a story.” 

“Don’t know any.” Eren brushes off lazily. Ymir pitches a rock at him. “Screw you, I don’t know any!” 

“Don’t give me that shit, Jaeger. Everyone knows at least one good ghost story.” Her grin grows even wider. “’Cept Bert, here. He only knows one, it’s shit, and he tells it to death.” Bert sighs loudly, and Reiner just pats him on the back, placating. She pitches another rock. “So, either save me the pain of burning my ears off by killing me now, or tell a goddamn story.” Eren slaps away the next rock she throws at him. 

“Fine, shit. Once, a long time ago—” 

“Put a little feeling in it, Jaeger.” Reiner teases, settling on his sleeping bag, absentmindedly patting Connie’s leg. 

“I hate you all. Now, shut up and listen.” Eren sighs, plucking up a stick and poking at the fire, watching the end catch alight and crumble as it burned. “Once, a long time ago, there were lands to the north, covered in ice and snow. And the people who lived there feared to go out alone, especially during a very cold night. On dark nights, they would gather around, and listen to stories of the Mahaha.” Connie shivers, and Ymir casts an amused glance at him. “The Mahaha was a twisted demon, skinny and ugly, with white eyes. And it always wore a grin on its mouth—” 

“—Oh, so Ymir, then,” Connie jeers. Ymir only throws a rock at him, gesturing at Eren to continue. 

Eren twists his mouth up in a grin, leering around the fire at his audience. “When it spots prey, it laughs.” He gives an evil, pitched giggle, and Bert shivers, too. “It laughs, and sharpens its long claws on its long, bony fingers. When it gets its hands on a victim, it tickles and tickles and tickles, and the victim will laugh and laugh in sync with the Mahaha until their heart gives out, and they die. When other people find victims of the Mahaha frozen in the snow, their terrified grins are frozen on their faces.” 

“Shit, Jaeger, where’d you even learn such a creepy story?” Connie shivers again, burrowed into his sleeping bag. 

“My mom.” Eren lies back on his sleeping bag, mood black. 

It is crawling into the wee hours of the morning when they are woken to screams and laughter, a cackle so demonic Eren reaches instinctively for his gear. But it’s only Ymir’s silhouette atop Connie in the half-darkness of the dying fire, laughing like the Mahaha while she mercilessly tickles Connie, who laughs and screams in turns. 

He blusters when Ymir finally releases him, collapsing on her side in a fit of giggles that sound much more human. “Oh, your face, I wish you’d seen your face! Did you piss yourself, Connie? Did you think I was the Mahaha come to tickle you to death?” She ignores the sticks and leaves he grabs off the forest floor to throw at her to laugh harder than ever. 

“Why’d you have to do that, you startled me—” 

“Startled?” Ymir repeats incredulously. “I think I scared you into old age.” She grins wide and vicious. “S’what you get for calling me a bitch.” 

“And that was supposed to make me take it  _back_?” 

“Alright, okay.” Reiner interrupts. “Can we go back to sleep now?” 

Eren is still breathing hard, dreams fading behind his eyelids, blood red and steaming hot, the echoing laughter of the Mahaha mingling with Ymir’s quiet chuckles as she crawls back into her sleeping bag. Slowly, he lets go of the handle of his sword, one finger at a time. Reiner starts snoring again soon enough. Connie too. But Eren is wide awake, and he knows he won’t be going back to sleep any time soon. 

 

* 

Practical exams are over. Sasha daringly stole a couple bottles of liquor from the rooms of the officers, doling out the liquid with a cheerful assurance they wouldn’t be missed. Armin is passed out cold on his shoulder, and Eren catches his glass before he can drop it, and drains its remaining contents in one rough swallow. His belly feels warm, or perhaps that’s just Mikasa’s head in his lap, her breathing gentle. Her eyes are open, but he can tell she isn’t really aware.  

"You hold your liquor well," Ymir says. She’s drinking straight from the bottle, and playfully holds it out of Krista’s reach when she goes to grab it, laughing at her needy little whine and alcohol flushed cheeks. Eren just thinks if being drunk is feeling warm and easy, he doesn’t mind it all that much. Sasha and Connie and Jean are wailing some folk song none of them really know the lyrics to, Jean dancing wildly while Connie cheers him on. 

Suddenly, Marco is warm on his right shoulder, mouth tilted in a sly grin, gaze twinkling in the firelight. "Can I use you as a pillow too?" He asks, but Eren has the vague sense that what he’s saying and what he means are two different things. His hand is low on his hip between him and Armin, his mouth so close and his eyes so big. Eren nods slowly, says yes to both meanings. 

Marco’s lips are warm on his, his head tipping, and Eren gasps, finds Marco’s tongue pressing into his mouth, sliding with his. Eren forgets Mikasa in his lap, Armin on his other shoulder, world narrowed down to Marco’s tongue, Marco’s teeth, Marco’s easy moving lips, the pleased noise Marco makes in his throat. 

He sighs against Marco’s mouth, blinks slowly to look at the fan of dark eyelashes against freckled cheeks glowing orange in the firelight. Ymir is watching, both eyebrows raised, and Annie just kisses her teeth when Marco kisses down to his throat, sinks his teeth in at his pulse in a way Eren never would have thought would feel good. Sasha whistles. 

"Get a room!"  Connie howls. 

"Only if Eren wants." Marco returns smoothly, flashes a terrible and tempting grin, looks to Eren. “You’re welcome to join us, Connie.” 

"I’m okay here." Eren mutters, patting Mikasa’s hair. He drags his nose up the side of Marco’s, breath ghosting; lingering. He wants to kiss him again, surprises himself with how badly he wants it. 

Ymir laughs uproariously, nearly spilling her liquor. "Looks like you’re passing up on something really good, Eren!" She catcalls, while Krista slurs at her to behave herself. 

Eren really has no idea what she means. He just knows he feels nice, and warm, and takes another drink to keep the feeling going, and finds the heat completely different from the heat he wants.


	3. Third Year

"Eren!" Marco calls, and he stiffens, turns back to the door of the common room, where Marco is waving at him. He's not fully dressed, gear straps hanging loose around his waist, the first two buttons of his shirt are popped, exposing his clavicle and the freckles sprinkled there. He swallows roughly.

"What?"

"You forgot your canteen on the table." Marco jogs a couple steps to him, holding the canteen out, a kind smile on his mouth. Eren takes it, hyperaware of the light brush of Marco’s calloused fingers against his. He feels a little like he’s being strangled; hands squeezing at his throat every time Marco looks at him, growing tighter with every smile, every gentle chuckle, until Eren’s certain something must be done before he stops breathing all together.

He licks his lips, and thinks his heart will beat out of his chest when he catches Marco watching the movement, and thinks deliriously he'd like his tongue—

"You’re gonna be late."  Marco warns, cocking his hip out so that Eren’s eyes are dragged down the delightful curve his waist and legs make before he can force his eyes back to Marco’s face.

"It’s just sparring with Annie." Eren says. "Doesn’t matter if I’m a little late, if you had something to talk about." Marco has nothing to talk about, Eren knows, he only came out to give him his canteen, but Marco’s body is warm in his space, smelling of freshly laundered clothes and salty skin heated by the morning sun. Every inch of Eren’s skin tracks Marco’s movements, feels as he shifts away or closer in turns, feels his breath— or at least imagines he does.

"How are you doing on the independent study assignment?" Marco asks.

"Armin’s helping me out on the parts I don’t get. We're working on it tonight. You can join us, if you want." Marco beams at him, Eren feels like something is sitting on his chest, squeezing the life from him, because he can’t breathe.

"I will. Meet you in the common room after dinner?"

"Yeah." Eren whispers a little breathlessly.

“Oh, your strap’s a little twisted.” Marco reaches out, fingers curling beneath the tight leather to right it, sliding hotly from his shoulder to his chest, trailing sparks along the skin just separated from his touch by the thin fabric of his shirt. Eren gasps out a little noise.

“There.” He smiles. Marco reaches out, trails his hand from his shoulder to his wrist, and beams again.

"I’d better get going. Annie—" he feels stupid and lost, gesturing artlessly behind himself, fire consuming him and making it hard to think.

"Good luck." Marco cheers, and he disappears back into the common room. Eren's arm tingles, seared by Marco’s touch, and more disturbingly, longing for him to do it again. 

*

"I don’t mean to pry—" Armin starts, falters, and starts scrubbing harder at the dishes in the tub at his feet. "I mean, I know you don’t like people asking–"

"Armin just spit it out." Eren sighs, taking the scoured dish and drying it.

"Marco likes you." Armin blurts, and looks utterly mortified when he does.

Eren blinks. "I should fucking think so, I wash that asshole’s laundry."

Armin glowers. "You know that's not what I meant. Don't play dumb with me."

"Then what did you mean Armin?" Eren sighs, leans back against a wooden beam to regard Armin, one eyebrow raised. Armin raises one right back.

"I'm not an idiot Eren. And neither are you." Armin sets down his brush, and the dirty plate to turn to him, hands dripping and raw, eyes glinting with knowledge. "Did you think I didn’t see it?"

"See what Armin?"

"Do I really have to spell it out for you?  It’s been obvious from day one what Marco wanted from you. Why do you think Jean is always so protective of him with you? Why do you think Mikasa never once liked him?"

"She never told me she didn’t like him." Armin gives him a look, the one that says he’s stupid and should shut up when people greater than he are speaking. On anyone else, he hates that particular look.

"And you. Don’t try to pretend you’ve been oblivious. You know he likes you. And you’ve been pushing him away because--" he pauses and swallows, lifts his face up to look at Eren firmly. "Because you’re afraid." He doesn’t say of what. They both know precisely what Eren's afraid of.

"What do you want from me?" Eren sighs out, takes a seat beside Armin’s stool to look up at him.

Armin wipes his hands on his pants, touches Eren's arm. "I just want you to allow yourself to be happy." His mouth twists in a strange smile. "If Marco makes you happy, then screw what Mikasa thinks, I’ll back you."

Eren nods, pushes Armin’s shoulder gently. They go back to washing dishes, people milling around them with chores of their own. "Why wouldn’t Mikasa tell me... any of that?"

"You know Mikasa." Armin replies, and leaves it at that. 

*

Eren breathes sharp through his nose the first time Marco kisses him. They’re alone together in some secluded part of the forests, the cool shadows giving the air a feeling of secrecy and safety crafted from leaves and mouths and fluttering pale butterflies. Marco’s lips are a little damp; Eren knows his are chapped. In retrospect, he knew Marco was going to kiss him, could sense his eyes on the curve of his neck and the bow of his mouth.

Marco rests his palm against the curve of Eren’s cheek so lovingly; Eren drops his armful of firewood to rest his hands on his biceps. Encouraged, Marco presses deeper, pinning him to the rough sticky bark of the pine tree behind him, his other hand laid against his heart like a promise. He doesn’t want the promise, but he'll take Marco’s tongue sliding with his own, Marco’s lips moving, their breathing finding a rhythm. He'll take what Marco can give right now.

Marco’s teeth sink into his bottom lip, and the noise Eren makes is surprised and aroused and somewhat embarrassed, and it’s followed close on the heel of a whimper when Marco’s thigh works between his knees and nudges his growing erection. Marco’s lips find his pulse, he sinks his teeth in hard, and Eren moans loud, face flushed hot when Marco laughs darkly against his ear, the pleased sound of a predator with prey clamped between its jaws.

Eren doesn’t much like the thought of being prey; he tangles his fingers hard in Marco's thick black hair and tugs his head back to lick into his mouth, savours Marco’s rough groan.

"Are you two stumbling around blind? How long does it take to find some firewood?" Connie calls from some bushes. They break apart slowly, reluctantly, breathing rough and eyes fixed. Marco’s eyes are dark, pupils blown and lips damp and darkened.

He waits for Marco to pull away before he bends to pick up the firewood, and they trek back in silence, the air between them crackling. 

*

Eren goes to sit with Mikasa when she’s on first watch. The others doze gently around a fire, but she sits like a she wolf in the shadows, cloak drawn around her shoulders.

“You’re mad at me." Eren broaches, leaning his chin on his knees.

"What makes you think that?" She murmurs, but doesn’t turn to look at him.

"That right there." He answers, watching her shifting shoulders as she breathes. "So, are you gonna tell me why you’ve been glaring at Marco like he stole the bread outta your mouth, or are you just gonna keep giving me the silent treatment?"

Mikasa’s silent a long while. She plucks at her scarf, worrying the yarn. "I don’t like him." She says, twisting a tassel around her finger.

"No shit." Eren says, nudging her with his elbow.

"I don’t like the way he looks at you, I don’t like the way he acts; he’s..." She searches for words, grits her teeth. "He’s a snake. And you’re blind not to see it."

"Who said I didn’t see it?" Eren looks at her until she returns his look. "He’s fake but—"

"Fake doesn’t begin to describe it. He plays at being so nice, so caring. He’s just mark hungry, he acts like that to make it to the top ten, and get into the military police."

"You can’t hate him because he wants to survive."

"You hate Jean cause he wants to survive."

Eren kisses his teeth. "Yeah, but Jean’s an asshole about it." Mikasa sighs fondly at that. Eren feels his ears heat; he blurts, "You know he kissed me?"

Mikasa rounds on him. "He what?" The she-wolf image rings true, eyes ablaze and teeth bared. She looks like she wants to scour the woods for Marco’s camp with group two, wants to slit his throat and watch him bleed out.

"I liked it." He says, and holds her gaze. "I like him. And maybe it’s because he’s fake and manipulating me, or whatever crazy theories you’ve cooked up or maybe--" he thinks back to something Marco said. "Maybe it’s because I wanna be the person he’s actually real around."

Mikasa studies him, sighs. "I don’t like him." She repeats.

"Yeah, but you don’t like anyone, so your opinion’s kinda invalid."

"I don’t want you to get hurt."

"You can’t protect me from every little splinter and paper cut." Mikasa glowers at the ground. "I’m not a baby you need to watch after." He gets up, pats Mikasa's hair. He doesn’t have to see her to feel her eyes roll.

"There’s a difference between heartbreak and a paper cut," she says darkly as he pulls away.

"Then I’ll find that out on my own."

*

Chestnut trees grow in the forest in clusters. When training finishes in the afternoon, they bring baskets, pots, anything they can get their hands on to harvest the fallen nuts.

"Careful of the burrs." Mikasa reminds Eren, who rolls his eyes at her and gingerly picks up a spiny chestnut, peeking out of its green burr, from the forest floor. He flicks a bug from its surface and smoothly tosses it into the basket on Mikasa’s back. Behind him, other cadets crunch by, seeing this tree claimed and unwilling to fight for it.

“There’s Eren.” Jean’s voice hisses, but Eren doesn’t turn to look, he just keeps rooting chestnuts out from among fallen leaves. “You aren’t gonna say hi or moon over him or something?”

“He’s with Mikasa.” Marco replies, low and soft and simple. Eren doesn’t have to turn and look to know Marco is ducking his head, rubbing at the back of his neck in a nervous gesture of bashfulness.

“You think she’s competition or something?” Jean snorts. “Since when were you ever afraid of Mikasa?”

“Since she shoved me up against the barracks and threatened my life if I even thought about looking at Eren with, ah how did she put it? Impure intentions.”

Jean snorts again. “She what? Mikasa did?”

“Yeah, I think she had a knife to my balls.”

“You think?”

“I wasn’t gonna look down and check!”

They pass closer, and Eren looks up, catches Marco’s eye. He waits. Beside him, Mikasa has gone still and hard, but Marco seems impervious to her glittering grey eyes, and if he hadn’t heard any of their exchange, he might think Marco unafraid of her. “Hi, Eren.” Marco chirps. “Hi, Mikasa.”

“Hey.” Eren returns amiably enough, examining his haul and dumping them into Mikasa’s basket. She has not moved, still and lethal, and he wonders if Mikasa understands he’d wanted the kiss, surprised as he’d been at the time. He wonders if she understands that this has all been a long time coming.

“We brought our gear so we can get higher in the trees. Can we share this one with you?” Marco smiles so sweetly, so cunningly, Eren raises a single brow. Mikasa bristles, and he touches her arm, just once.

“There’s room enough.”

“How generous of you, Lord Jaeger.” Jean sneers.

“You think you’re shit, Kirstein?” Eren snaps back. “You think you’re shit, let’s go.” But their posturing doesn’t come to anything.

The hisses of gas as Marco and Jean head up into the trees almost covers: “I thought you were afraid of her.”

And the responding: “I could lose a nut or two, if it were for him.”

Jean snorts. “Man, you got it _bad_.” 

*

"We really shouldn’t be playing around," Eren says, fingers curling into the breast of Marco’s jacket, head tipping back to find Marco's mouth in the dark. Just because it’s a bad idea doesn’t mean he’s gonna stop. And Marco sure as hell isn’t going to either.

He makes that clear when his fingers curl around Eren’s neck to hold him steady, big thick fingers tipping his chin up, and Eren goes weak kneed from a strange rush of arousal at the idea of Marco's hands at his neck. He moans into Marco's first kiss, opening his mouth to the first sweep of Marco’s tongue in his mouth, sliding hotly with his own.

Marco’s teeth scrape harshly, Eren groans and bites at his lip only to suck away the hurt. They are slotted together perfectly against the tree, and for a moment there is no sound but labored breathing and cricket song, lips parting and meeting again wetly, sliding together, caught between nipping teeth and slicked with tasting tongues. Their kisses turn sloppy, panting against each other’s mouths as they grind together.

“Shit.” Eren hisses, hips jerking up against Marco’s thigh and rutting, heat pooling in his belly, cock confined in the rough fabric of his pants, Marco’s erection hard against his hip. He reaches down boldly, and Marco makes a startled noise, hips rolling into his hand, fingers growing a little tight on his neck as he loses himself in the pleasure. “I like that–” Eren gasps, and finds the words swallowed by Marco’s mouth, Marco’s teeth clacking with his, hungry noises shared between them.

Marco’s hand slides under his shirt, blunt nails scraping against skin, moans rough and urgent between his kisses as he ruts against Eren’s hand stroking him awkwardly over his pants. Eren likes that, likes the way Marco’s forehead drops to his shoulder, his breath gusting warm against his neck, soft keening noises when Eren squeezes.

“Wanna make you come just like this.” Eren grunts, reaching past the waistband of his pants, grabbing the velvet soft hot skin, offering friction that Marco pumps eagerly into.

“Fuck.” Marco says, and presses his thigh hard against Eren’s cock, startling a moan from him. They are hot and desperate now, grinding bodies twined together, working hips and helping hands, noises muted as they find patches of skin to kiss in the rumpled gaps of their uniforms, mouths always finding each other again to suck at hot tongues, to scrape with teeth and nibble kiss swollen lips. Eren arches in surprise when Marco’s fingers find his nipple; he didn’t expect that to feel good at all, but the pad of Marco’s thumb rubs over it, short sparks of pleasure making Eren shiver and curse.

“Marco.” Eren pants, squirming in his hands, against his thighs, sweaty and his mouth dry and aching for more kisses, more teeth, more big hands wrapped around him, holding him still. Marco reaches down to fumble out Eren’s cock, strokes a couple of times, so that Eren hardly has the sense of self, never mind the coordination to do the same for him. They line their cocks, Eren taking them both in hand.

Then they are rolling hips and open mouthed noises, Marco’s cock easing in and out Eren’s hand, sliding hotly against his cock, turning sticky with precum. Eren thinks he will shake apart without Marco’s hand on his chest, pinning him to the tree. He’s terribly close, chanting Marco’s name, rhythm stuttering, while Marco curses against his ear, tells him, “yes, fuck, good, c’mon Eren, go on lemme see you.” Eren’s head smacks back against the tree, toes curling in his boots, orgasm hot and taking him while he cries out and rides it.

Marco looks beautiful when he comes, mouth wet and red and open around a moan, eyes squeezed shut, frozen for a long moment in that hot rush of orgasm. Eren’s cock gives a tired and interested twitch, but Eren can only lean back panting, stroking Marco through the dredges of his orgasm.

They part covered in each other’s come and sweat, embarrassed and sated. Marco looks him up and down, gingerly touches a hickey he’s left on Eren’s neck. Eren shivers, and perhaps Marco notices, because he says: “I heard you, you know.”

“Heard what?”

“When you said you liked that my hand was on your neck, I heard you.” Eren doesn’t feel particularly strange about it, but there’s a flush to Marco’s cheeks.

“Is that weird?” Eren asks, inspecting the cum on his hand blandly. Marco sighs and shakes his head. “Good. That means you’ll do it again.” 

*

The market stinks of animals, sun-warmed fruit and too many bodies pressed together, arguing and haggling and laughing. Marco’s hand brushes Eren’s as they walk, and sometimes they let their fingers tangle briefly, much to the delight of Sasha who likes to coo at them, and the chagrin of Mikasa, who glares at their joined fingers until Marco pulls away again. "A farmer donated a big bag of cornmeal," Marco is saying. "So should we focus on vegetables this month?"

"Meat, I think," Eren replies. "We haven’t been getting enough protein." He knows because no matter how hard Mikasa trains, her frame seems wasted and lacking, toned and lithe and hard, but she doesn’t gain the additional mass she longs for.

"Meat’s expensive." Mikasa murmurs. She has a big basket over her shoulder, filled with eggs, and a few jars of preserves. Her money was mostly depleted for the lot, but no one haggles better than Mikasa; vendors give into her coal black gaze as easy as warm butter to a knife. Which reminds Eren, they haven’t had butter in a long time. "Should we get beans instead?"

"If I even look at another bean in a million years it’ll be too soon." Jean complains, dragging a sack full of potatoes over his shoulder. Eren thinks with his horse-like face, he looks like a burglar, and reminds himself to say so later.

"I think we should just invest in a cow, you know?" Sasha chirps, stroking the speckled red and yellow skin of her apples. "If we had a cow, we could get milk, and cheese, and butter—"

"Sasha please, you’re drooling." Eren sighs. She sticks her tongue out at him. He knows, in truth, her eyes are peeled for good food, good prices, that she sniffs out worthwhile odds and ends like a bloodhound, and always knows when fruits are at their prime. “Let’s split up, and meet up at the gate in two hours.”

Marco follows him into the fray, fingers tangled and tugging in the back of his jacket. “With any luck, Sasha will find some meat or something,” Marco says, looking over the tops of people’s heads at the various wares for sale. Eren can’t see anything over people’s shoulders, groceries and baskets. “Oh.” Marco gasps over his head, gaze arrested by a stall mostly abandoned by the end of the market aisle. “Wouldn’t that be a treat?”

The words _Homemade Fudge_ are painted brightly, and if the breeze blows just right, Eren catches the sweet scent on the wind. He had fudge before, just once, and he can’t remember what it tasted like. Marco’s eyes are glued to the stall with an expression of unabashed longing until at last he tears his gaze away, murmuring something about it being a waste of money, and turns instead to test the ripeness of a few tomatoes.

“Stay here.” He says, and shoulders his way through the crowd towards the stall. He’s gotten good at swiping things from the markets, and even the most righteous of the cadets admit there’s some use to knowing how to steal. There’s never enough funding, money stretched so thin yet there’s still never quite enough for all the things they need, never mind the things they want. Eren swipes a couple of candies, and finds Marco, moved on now to some rather suspicious looking peaches.

“Where’d you go?” He jostles him with his elbow, smiles. He blinks when Eren shoves the little wax paper wrapped squares into his palm.

“Got these for you.” He says, lets a small, almost-smile play at his lips. He doesn’t explain how, and Marco knows better than to ask. Marco unwraps one, bites half and hands him the other. The fudge is thick, creamy and sweet. Mostly, Eren enjoys Marco’s wide, honest grin, and the way he looks down at him as though he can’t think of another person he’d rather share stolen candies with. 

*

Marco presents the delicately curved bit of wood, stained a soft cherry red, to him like a man presents a wedding ring. It’s a promise, again, but Eren ignores the bitter taste of it to take the pocketknife in his palm.

"Made it outta scraps in the work shop." Marco says bashfully. Eren doesn’t know why he bothers with humility; it’s a beautiful piece of work, and Marco knows it. "Thought I needed to make you something."

"It’s beautiful." Eren pulls open the blade, examines its well-crafted curve, tests its sharpness on the skin of his thumb and is satisfied with the way the skin splits like ripe fruit beneath its edge. Marco's stamped his family's blacksmithing mark on its gleaming side.

"Turn it over, you’re missing the best part." Eren obeys, turns over the handle of the knife. Carefully, metal has been inlaid in delicately curving letters in the handle. _M.B. &E.J._ Eren’s lips grow tight and thin, rubbing his thumb over the initials until the metal grows warm beneath his touch.

"Well?" Marco presses, face hot and hopeful. Eren represses a sigh. He pulls Marco down to him to press a kiss to the corner of his mouth.

"It’s beautiful." He repeats, and closes the blade back into the handle. Marco beams at him.

"I thought about it a really long time. Know you’re not one for trinkets. Then I thought, course you’d like something you could murder people with. You’re just practical that way." He grins so wide and happy, Eren snorts and shoves at him playfully.

"You’re something else." Marco makes an affronted noise, as if to ask, ‘me? I'm something else?’ and twines their fingers together over the smooth handle of the pocketknife. It’s a promise, Eren knows. And he hates and loves it in equal measure.

All he can think of is the finger currently wrapped around his covered in grease and soot, lovingly piecing the pocketknife together. He wonders if Marco has a matching one. He wonders if that makes the promise, or whatever it happens to be, more real.

He wonders if that means Marco will be able to keep it. 

*

“Don’t know why you would want—“ Eren starts, means to say that having a cock in his mouth couldn’t be that fun, but Marco shuts him up with a kiss against his pelvis, large hands stroking down his legs, and a strange thrill of arousal surges right through him, cock hardening in Marco’s hand. He can’t be comfortable, huddled beneath the quilt in their shared bunk, trying hard to remain quiet as bodies around them shift in different stages of sleep or masturbation. Still, Marco strokes his cock to full hardness, and Eren’s sure that he has that devious, hungry grin on his mouth, fingers shaking with nervous energy.

“I wanna do it.” Marco whispers, and Eren sighs when his tongue slides up his cock, wet, warm, completely unexpected. Eren’s fingers fumble down to find his hair, his cheek, his shoulder, anything to grip onto as Marco sucks the head of his cock into his hot mouth, carefully, easing down his length at a pace so slow Eren writhes for more, stilled only by Marco’s hands on his hip and belly.

“God, Marco, fuck—“ He sighs, squeezing his eyes shut as Marco’s tongue swirls around the head, tongue dipping to the slit, before he takes him deeper. Eren makes an aborted noise when his cock hits the back of his throat. Marco backs off then, strokes his cock hurriedly as he pants for air.

“Good right? You like it?”

“I like it, don’t stop –“ he’s forced to muffle his moans behind his hand as Marco sucks him down, swallowing clumsily, wet tongue laving up the underside. His hips want to twitch up into Marco’s mouth, bury his cock as deep as Marco’s soft mouth can take him and thrust. He settles on squinting down at Marco’s lips wrapped around his cock, peering beneath the blanket. He wishes he could tell Marco just how good it is, he wishes he could see his eyes, rather than the fiendish glint of them in the dark, staring up at him, humming quietly, sucking, head bobbing. “M-Marco, I—”

Marco pulls off, licks his lips. “Want you to come in my mouth.” He says, strokes rough palms along Eren’s trembling belly, and Eren whimpers some truly pathetic noise, tries to quiet his noises as Marco sucks, wet noises, wet lips, wet fingers stroking hot damp skin. He comes with a muted cry, and Marco pushes back the covers to flop on the bunk beside him, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Get it now?” he murmurs against Eren’s ear, and Eren can feel the hot press of his cock against his thigh.

“Get what?” Marco laughs, ruts against Eren’s thigh, buries his nose at his sweat damp neck, ruts until he comes with a hot, gusting moan that makes Eren turn so he can kiss him, taste his own cum.

  

The next morning, Reiner looks at him strangely, mouth twisted in a grimace. “At least have the decency to fuck somewhere else, man.” He flicks Eren’s ear. “I’m in the bunk above you. I could hear you.”

Eren shrugs, and halfway between getting changed beside him, Marco flushes and sputters. “That would embarrass me if I didn’t know whose name you call when you come.” Eren says drily, and Reiner blushes, punches him in the arm. Eren and Marco share a secret look, but that’s the last time they fuck in the barracks.

*

Washday is Wednesday. It takes too much effort to lug hot water from the kitchens to the tubs, where it would have cooled to lukewarm, so they take all the dirty laundry, all the dirty linen, and drag themselves to the river.

Eren carefully balances a tub of laundry on his hip, his clean clothes folded over his shoulder. He’s barefoot, picking through the stones and pine needles that have been knocked askew by the parade of cadets ahead of them. “Hurry up, Jean.” He calls behind him, and grimaces when a pebble digs into the sole of his foot.

“Literally shut up, Jaeger, try to carry all the girls’ bloody sheets and then talk to me.” Jean calls back.

Marco is behind both of them, and he catches up to Jean to distribute the weight of the tub between them. He looks at Eren, bare chest, bare foot, up and down. “Why don’t you at least wear something on the way?”

“Wearing boots is a hassle, and trying to put them on when my feet are wet is annoying.” Eren gives a one armed shrug and toes a stick out of his way. “It’s more… liberating like this. I like it.”

“You’re such a loser Jaeger.” Jean sneers, though he is sweating in his uniform on their small hike.

“I want you to remember we’re going to a deep body of water.” Eren says blandly. Jean makes a face at him, but Eren just flaps his free hand at a fly as it buzzes around his head.

The path through the forest opens to a rocky shore, where the girls have already spread their laundry to dry in the sun. Eren dumps his tub of laundry by a large rock and gets scrubbing, feet dappling in the water, flicking away clinging water snails from his seat when they scrape his legs.

“Hate it when the girls get their period.” Marco grumbles. He’s stripped just to his pants now, sitting in the water at Eren’s feet, inspecting a large red brown splotch in the crumpled white sheets. He dips it into the water, sets his wash rack between his knees and starts scrubbing vigorously.

“I like it.” Eren says flatly. He glances to Mikasa, whom he has to squint to see over the glare of the afternoon sun on the river. “It means the girls are healthy, that they’re getting enough.” Marco blinks at him and hums, and wisely says nothing on the matter.

Eren’s sure by now everyone knows of their years in the landfill, barely scraping by for two years, counting each other’s ribs with worry and unable to do anything about it. And if they don’t know, Eren’s sure they can guess, based on Armin and Mikasa’s attitude towards food.

“Doesn’t make it any less of a pain to wash out.” Jean grumbles from behind them, dropping his clothes onto Marco’s pile and dragging his own tub closer. Eren kisses his teeth at him. “Why do we have to wash their bloody sheets?”

“Because the girls wash your goddamn crusty underwear, and you should kiss the ground they walk on for it.” He tosses a bar of harsh lye soap at Jean’s head, which Jean catches and lobs back. Marco ducks a little and puts his hands over his head to avoid being collateral. “Either way you aren’t scrubbing it right. What the hell do you think swishing it around in water’s gonna do?” Eren demonstrates washing it, scrubbing the soap first, utterly unaffected by the way the soap comes away brown beneath his fingers. He lifts the sheet to the sun to inspect the stain, scrubs some more, and then tosses it back at Jean. “See? That’s how you do it.”

“You’re gonna make someone a great housewife, Jaeger.” Jean says without much heat. Eren kisses his teeth at him, sheds his pants and wades out deeper into the water with a bar of soap, forgoing his laundry until Jean’s done and will be off bothering someone else.

Marco splashes after him, “You wanna see something nice?” He whispers lowly, big hands sliding over his shoulder blade. Eren shrugs and follows where Marco leads. They leave behind the noise of the other cadets, splashing, laughing, washing and bathing. He shows him a dip in the river, dammed up by large river rocks and shaded by tall shrubs to create a secluded pool.

“You built this?”Eren asks, slipping down into the deeper waters with a sigh of pleasure. Marco shrugs with a grin and slips in after him.

“Figured you’d want a place to escape Jean for a bit.” Eren chuckles, only to be cut off when Marco’s lips press firm against him, wet and cool, hands sliding into his hair, tongue licking into his mouth. The soap slips from his fingers to the gravel at the pool floor, and he’s glad of the bushes so no one else sees the way his knees go weak when Marco just grabs and kisses him. He laughs when they part, pressing his forehead to Eren’s.

“I’ll just get out of your way then—“

Eren snorts, “Who said you could go anywhere?”

*

"Scared?" Marco murmurs, pressing a kiss to the back of his neck. Eren shudders, and shakes his head, pressing his ass back insistently against Marco’s crotch. Marco’s fingers slide pleasantly over his hole, teasing and easy. "I’ll be gentle."

"I’ll be alright." Eren says stubbornly, and feels his ears heat when Marco chuckles good-naturedly at him. His breath hitches when a single thick finger presses inside, and his fingers grow tight in the pile of towels before him, Marco sprinkling kisses at the nape of his neck and down his spine as he eases in a second finger.

Everything then is sensation, the tingle-thrust-pull of Marco’s fingers working inside him, opening him, Marco’s lips against his nape, his teeth in the meat of his shoulders, his cock against the small of his back. Eren shudders, makes strange sounds. It’s not pleasurable, or bad, just intimate, and Eren sort of likes that.

"Eren." Marco murmurs. "You’re so hot like this." Eren doesn’t feel hot, he feels open and bare. He whimpers.

"Just hurry up." He can’t take much more of this, the intimacy is starting to embarrass him. Marco hums a noise, slips his fingers out. They have oil to ease the way, and it cost them both an arm and a leg. He listens to the sound of Marco slicking his cock, pushes his ass out for it. Marco groans when his cock slips hotly between Eren’s cheeks, a deep animal sound that almost doesn’t match Marco’s image at all.

Then he’s pushing in and Eren has to bite down on the towel again. Its intense and overwhelming, one thick inch of Marco pushing in slowly enough to drive him insane. He doesn’t need or want Marco’s gentle, but he’s thankful for it now, fingers scrabbling at the piles of linens and Marco’s strong forearms. Marco moans against his skin when he bottoms out, and all Eren knows is heat, tightness, fullness.

"You alright?" Marco hums, hips easing back and drawing out so slowly it drags a strange noise out of Eren with it.

"I’m fine." He gasps out. "I’m alright."

He clenches his eyes shut on the first few thrusts, tries to breathe through his nose and relax. Marco palms at his cock, stroking him leisurely to match his pace, but Eren can’t take that either. He cries out, too loud, surely they’ve woken somebody, but he can’t think about that because he feels like he’s being pulled apart one nerve at a time. Marco murmurs compliments in his ear, tells him how good he’s doing, how beautiful he is, how good it feels for him, and Eren glad of that because Marco’s cock carving a path in his body takes up the rest of his world.

When Marco comes it’s with a stuttered breath, a high sound, burying in as far as he can and holding Eren’s hips there. Eren slumps with relief, and grunts when Marco pulls out, leaving him feeling empty and open, his hole clenching embarrassingly on nothing. Marco turns him and drops to his knees, mouth hot before his cock.

The thin sheets are soft beneath his balled fists; the air in the closet is close, and smells of orange peels, dried lavender, and the salt of Marco’s skin. He bites hard into a folded towel to muffle his needy noises as Marco slurps obscenely at the head of his cock, fingers gentle but firm on his hip, pinning him back against the wall of shelves.

He comes up with a wet noise, kisses the head of Eren’s cock with slick lips, looking up at Eren with caramel eyes through damp lashes, coy and hot. "C'mon, fuck my throat." He urges, opening his mouth for Eren’s cock, and Eren keens a strange noise, hips jerking forward. Marco groans roughly, swallows Eren all the way down, watches as he takes him apart as easily as hollowing his freckled cheeks and swallowing.

Eren’s fingers fall to Marco’s hair, panting out a desperate noise when Marco hums his approval, scraps his teeth along the underside of his cock. "Damn it, Marco." He hisses, because if he keeps this up, Eren won’t be able to keep quiet.

"Knew you’d like it to hurt." Marco murmurs, and scrapes his teeth over the jut of Eren’s pelvic bone before pressing a kiss to the hurt. "Fuck my throat. C'mon I can take it." Eren obeys, sharp thrusts of his hips into Marco hot and waiting mouth, hissing out curse words and Marco’s name and garbled blends of the two while Marco watches him with a glint of amusement. He feels weak, nerves frayed. He moans long and loud when his orgasm takes him, fingers cupping Marco’s face. Marco pulls away, licks a stray drop of cum from his lips. Eren wobbles unsteadily until he eases him down onto the closet floor with him.

He lays half in Marco’s lap, his rough hands stroking his lower back, easing the knots from his muscles. "You didn’t come while I was fucking you." Marco whispers.

"Pride hurt?" Eren grunts, pressing his nose to Marco’s belly, determined to ignore everything but his hands and the smell of sex on his skin.

"Yeah, a little." He’s silent a moment. "Didn’t it feel good?"

Eren sighs through his nose. "Good isn’t the word I’d use. It was intense, and I felt full of you. I liked that." Marco makes an agreeing noise, but Eren can tell he doesn’t really understand. 

*

"Well?" Eren flaps his hand at Jean expectantly, not quite offended as he should be when Jean eyes him mistrustfully, submerged in the lake up to his neck. Eren’s treading water easy as breathing, but Jean refuses to lift his feet from the smooth rocks of the bottom.

Marco and Armin have found themselves a large rock to lounge on like mermaids, watching what will undoubtedly be a good show. The others have already gone back to the barracks, having cooled off enough to sleep comfortably. It’s late; the moon has started its descent back towards the horizon.

"On second thought—" Jean starts, and backs towards shore, away from the deep center of the lake Eren’s trying coax him into.

"Jean, don’t be a pussy. I said I’d teach you. I'm gonna teach you." He flaps his hands again, less teasing now and more serious. "You don’t have to be afraid."

"Shut up, I’m not afraid!" Jean snaps. Eren flaps his hand again and gets another wary look. "I’m healthily cautious."

"Stop spinning bullshit and gimme your fucking hands. We don’t have all night, and you’re gonna learn to swim if it kills me." He privately thinks it just might, if he doesn’t kill Jean first. Jean relents, and takes Eren’s hands, slowly, cautiously lofting his feet from the bottom of the lake. "I got you." Eren says, swimming out deeper.

Jean kicks at the water pathetically, face screwed in concentration and not a small amount of fear, fingers tight and slipping in his own. Even in the water, Jean is no slight weight, and Eren struggles to pull him along.

"Stop fighting me and swim!" He gasps, head bobbing above the water. He loses grip on Jean’s hands for just a second, and then Jean’s hands are on his shoulders, struggling to stay afloat by using Eren, pushing him beneath the water. Eren can’t get enough breath to yell that he has him, it’s fine, stop _pushing_ him—

Jean’s hands are instantly wrenched from him, and Armin’s hands are on him instead, warm and coaxing. "You alright? Eren? Eren?"

"Yeah I’m good." Eren coughs and splutters. In any other situation, he might have cursed Jean till he was blue in the face. He lets it go because in retrospect, perhaps he should not have dragged Jean out to deep waters. He can’t blame Jean for panicking. Marco has Jean back into the shallows, checking him over.

"See, you’re fine. You’re okay. Relax." Marco is saying.

Eren coughs a bit. He supposes Jean doesn’t really need to learn how to swim, not if he’s going to live in Sina. But this is the last summer—the last chance, he has to teach him. If at some point Jean does need to learn to swim, Marco will be there to teach him.

If that rankles a bit, Eren pushes it down and submerges himself in the cool water until his lungs burn and forgets about it as best he can. 

*

"You know your problem?" Marco says against his hair. It’s late; hardly a limb rustles the covers of the other bunks. Eren is half asleep himself, tucked beneath Marco's chin, warm and at ease. If anyone mentions it in the morning, he'll say it’s only common sense to share body heat in the drafty barracks when the temperature drops, and everyone knows Eren burns hotter than most. But he'll worry about such excuses in the morning. Eren grunts and nuzzles Marco’s neck, finds the vicious bite mark he left there the last time they fucked in the linen closet.

"You’re so afraid of losing people you keep them at arm’s length." Marco sounds sad, and Eren kisses his throat sleepily to quiet him; he wants to bask in Marco, not tear up wounds between them. "I don’t wanna be at arm’s length--"

"You were literally inside me two days ago. You call that arms length?" He retorts, and he’s glad he gets a laugh for that.

"But that doesn’t change the fact that you keep me out of your heart, stupid as that may sound." It does sound stupid; Marco is little a barb inside his heart and Eren wonders when the infection will spread. "You’re so afraid of promises--"

"Don’t ask me to promise you forever, Marco. Don’t ask me—" he bites his lip hard, struggles to take a breath as his throat goes tight. This isn’t how he wanted this night to be. "We're soldiers, and if—" he doesn’t know how much more heartbreak he can take.

"I don’t know what forever means." He looks up to find Marco’s eyes in the dark, can only see the curve of his shoulder and cheek through the slats of moonbeams. "I can only give you right now. I—"

Marco kisses his forehead and the tip of his nose. "Okay." He sighs. "Okay, right now is enough."

Marco is right, Eren thinks, and makes a valiant effort to sniffle back tears. He’s terrified of promises. 

*

Eren can tell at a glance that Marco is Beatrice Bodt's son. He looks like her, round friendly face, gold brown skin, freckles. The only difference is the eyes. Hers are dark as the night sky. Eren guesses Marco got his honey gold eyes from his father.

"Marco!" She shrieks. She hikes up her long black frock and runs at him before he can even get out of the carriage, and jumps straight into his arms. "Oh, my baby. Are they treating you right there? Are you getting enough to eat, who--" she pauses and looks at Eren, and blushes modestly. "Who is your friend, Marco?"

"Eren Jaeger, ma’am. Pleasure to meet you. I brought you—" he digs into his ruck sack and pulls out a little baggy of chestnuts. "I brought you these."

"Oh." She whispers. She takes them and smiles sadly, like she can sense he’s practically an orphan. "Thank you, you’re so sweet."

"Eren stop showing me up to my own mom." Marco grouses playfully, pushing his shoulder.

"Not my fault you didn’t think to bring a gift." Eren whips back. Beatrice laughs, beckons them over to the town house, and leads around to the basement stairs. Strohess is not the sparkling metropolis Eren imagined when he was a child, especially not this close to the wall. On this side of Wall Sina, the wrong side, families crowd into rooms of houses and live in squalor.

"You boys stay there, I’ll whip you up something to eat before I go to work--"

"No need ma’am, I’ll make dinner tonight." Eren says, dumping his rucksack out onto the kitchen table, revealing tomatoes and onions and a loaf if crusty bread he might have stolen from a much despised vendor in the Trost market.

"Let him, Ma. Eren’s magic in the kitchen." Marco pipes up before Beatrice can protest. She deflates, nods once and bustles over to kiss Marco’s forehead, and touches Eren’s cheek, before settling her maid’s cap on her hair and tying her apron around her neck.

"Behave yourselves boys. I’ll be back around midnight." With a wave, she climbs up the stairs.

"Your mother’s beautiful." Eren says when she’s gone. He gathers the vegetables idly, blinks at Marco’s pensive expression.

"She’s too skinny. I could have lifted her with no effort, she’s lost so much weight." Eren nods. Marco sighs and shakes himself, surges over the short distance between them to kiss Eren hard, demanding and hungry, searching tongue and teeth. He lifts Eren up onto the kitchen table, pushes him back.

"We're not having sex in your mother’s house. And definitely not in her kitchen." Eren hisses. Marco laughs breathlessly, but Eren thinks that isn’t really the sound he wants to make.

"I wanna hurry up and graduate." Marco murmurs against his neck, letting his weight slump against Eren on the table. "I wanna join the MP, get mom a house with a big window in the kitchen just like we used to have. I’m sick of seeing her like this."

"I know." Eren murmurs back, scraping his nails through Marco’s hair, easing his hand up and down his side until his breathing is no longer hitched like he’s holding back tears. He doesn’t really know. What he does know is that the world around him has been unfair to mothers everywhere in all sorts of ways, and that he’s used to being the one on the verge of tears, never the one doing the comforting. He wonders if he’s adequate. 

*

Armin is prone to sickness. In the winter, they push their bunks together, keep the iron potbelly stove roaring, while the wind tries to fight through the towels they’ve balled in the gaps of the window slats.

Armin sleeps tucked into his chest, fitting there like a key in a lock, tiny and fragile and chilled. When he sleeps, he seeks Eren’s warmth on instinct, and he keeps him sheltered there. Everyone else piles together on the massive bed they make, frozen toes seeking warm places between thighs to grow toasty.

Marco takes up the other side of Armin, engulfing him, long thick arm tossed over them both. Reiner’s back is pressed to Eren’s, he’s pretty sure Connie’s feet are between his legs and creeping higher than they ought to.

"Connie, are you trying to crawl inside me?" Eren snaps.

"Would it be warmer there? Jean took all the fucking blankets."

"I did _not,_ you little—"

"Jean, you ass, give Connie some blanket so he can stop trying to take up residence inside me."

"That sounds so wrong." Jean sighs, and there’s a rustle of blankets being tossed.

"Good, ‘cause it feels wrong."

"Could you all shut up? The final exam is tomorrow and I don’t really feel like dying because I’m tired." Reiner rumbles; Eren feels the vibration through his back, finds it soothing. But something drops in his stomach at the reminder of the final exam, and his fingers grow tight on Armin’s small shoulder.

His head turns, and he blinks to find Marco's honey eyes open and on him. "Scared?" Eren nods slowly; they’ve all heard horror stories of previous final exams. He’d be an idiot not to be scared. Marco leans over Armin’s head to kiss his nose, the only part of Eren he can easily reach. "I believe in you." Eren doesn’t say that he believes in himself too, he understands the sentiment.

"Can you two not canoodle in the communal bed?" Reiner sighs.

"Especially not when I’m right between you?" Armin pipes up. Marco laughs and kisses Eren again for spite, and Jean kicks at his feet. Eren tucks his chin over Armin’s head, and feels the cold pit of fear dissolve in warmth and noise, until everyone settles down once more to silence. Armin’s arm snakes around his waist, and maybe he’s afraid of tomorrow. Maybe he still feels cold. 

*

The final exam is simple, in theory. Survive three days in the wilds of the mountains; sign in at each check point on the way back from the start point. It’s the dead of winter, and each cadet is given the barest minimum of supplies.

"You may journey alone, or in groups." Shadis calls out. "Anyone who doesn’t make it back after three days has failed, and will be collected at the check points." He looks around at the gathered students, and in any other situation, maybe he would look a little ridiculous in his big, fur lined hat. No one laughs. "Good luck."

He turns back into the carriage, the final dismissal. Annie, Bert and Reiner break off first with nary a good bye. Sasha looks around at everyone else and grins. "Rule of the scavenger, follow the lead of the strongest predator." She takes off after them, clambering in the knee-high snow.

"What’ll we do?" Armin asks, and glances up ay the gloomy grey sky. It’s morning, but the sun doesn’t cut through the clouds at all and fluffy snowflakes sprinkle down gently. "A storm’s brewing, if the sky is any indication."

"We'd better try to make it to the first check point before the storm hits." Eren says, and Mikasa pulls out her map.

"Five check points all together. The first one is about five kilometers down the mountain." She says, and they squint at the paper in the sad light.

"And the next one?"

"Another five kilometers. From there they start getting farther apart." Eren squints at Armin. They won’t make it the ten kilometers before the storm. But he knows quite a few cadets who would try.

The trek is long and steep. For a while, everyone is visible between the trees, helping each other down sheer rock faces, but as the snow grows heavier, as people slow down or pull ahead, they lose track of each other.

The first checkpoint looms in the side of the mountain like a godsend. It’s little more than a log cabin hovel, and smoke from the chimney tells them others have already arrived.  The sky has gone slate gray and hellish, the wind turning snowflakes into tiny whips to the face. The three of them shuffle in.

“Hey!” Sasha chirps, and waves at them where she sits next to Annie, Reiner and Bert. There are a couple others scattered about the room, Eren nods to them, and claims a table by the fire, spreading out his soaked parka on the hearth to lay with others. The storm howls, and cadets trickle in by twos and threes. There’s no real food to be had, just their sad rations.

“Fuck, I hate army food.” Reiner gripes, chewing the stale biscuits.

“Then you shouldn’t have joined the army.” Eren whips back, and eats his own biscuit. He sees Marco, somewhat lately arrived, chatting to a couple of bedraggled cadets, splitting his biscuit among them. Eren rolls his eyes. He won’t tell Marco not to help people stupid enough to lose their supplies in a storm. There’s no point really, not when Marco’s has such a big heart, to the point of being stupid. If he kisses Marco’s cheek when everyone else is soundly asleep, and whispers fondly that he’s an idiot, that’s only for him to know.

The next morning, the air is still and crisp as though the storm had never been. There are a few footprints in the deep snow already, walking off into the sunrise. Sasha barrels passed Eren into the snow, pulling on her parka, biscuit shoved in her mouth. “Where’s the fire?” Armin laughs awkwardly, and she yells back that Annie and the other two left without her, and she intends to stick quite close.

The journey after that is quiet and long, just the occasional sound of chunks of snow and ice falling from tree branches, sometimes voices carrying over the mountains and bouncing over the snow covered rocky crags. They sign into the second and third outposts by mid-afternoon. There are distinctly less cadets now, less footprints in the snow, less sounds of laughter or exertion behind them. Eren sits with Armin by the hearth, rubbing feeling back into his small feet, much to Armin’s embarrassment.

“Stop complaining, you know my hands are warmer than yours.” He admonishes, and yelps when Mikasa shoves her cold fingers down the collar of his sweater, squirming at the chill.

The night wears on, the wind picks up again He doesn’t see Marco, and he tells himself he’s unconcerned, instead mending a hole in his sock. He keeps telling himself he’s unconcerned until he falls into uneasy sleep tucked between Mikasa and Armin who snuggle into his warmth.

He’s unconcerned until Armin literally trips over Marco after climbing down from a steep outcrop of rock. Then he’s panic and fury.

“What happened?” he demands, slapping Marco’s pallid and icy cheek.

“Hiking through the night. Fell.” He says shortly, gesturing back at the rocks above him. “Ankle hurts.”

“How long have you been out here, you idiot?” Eren hisses, roughly shoving away Marco’s pants, throwing off his boots, to inspect his swollen ankle. Marco groans roughly, and Armin pats his hand in comfort. “And where are your supplies? Your bag’s practically empty.”

“Couple people lost their packs in the storm so—“ Eren snorts. To him, the world is clear-cut: beautiful and cruel, as Mikasa would say. If you’re stupid you die, if you’re weak, you falter. Marco is neither of these things, for the most part. He pulls off his pack for his meager first aid kit, relieved that Marco’s boot kept down most of the swelling.

“You guys go on ahead; I’ll get this idiot patched up and be right behind you.” Marco protests weakly, and Eren kisses his teeth at him, binding his injured ankle. “Go on.” He says again, shoving at Armin’s shoulder.

“As if.” Armin says. “I’m staying right here.” He looks at Mikasa for backup, but she says nothing, standing removed from them, the flame of her scarf glowing against her white background. “We can all go together.” He says with an air of finality. Eren kisses his teeth again.

“If you guys don’t get there soon, you’ll fail the exam. Leave me, I’ll make it to a check point or—” Mikasa makes a disgusted noise and surges forward, barreling right into Marco and lifting him around the legs out of the snow. He screams a little, kicks, and finding that it causes him too much pain, falls limp over her shoulder. Eren snickers and Armin scrambles to stand.

“Come on, then.” She says, and walks off with him as though he weighs nothing at all.

*

They find each other in the chaos, hands finding hands, faces arms, as though affirming details of each other; the way the scratchy fabric of the uniform jacket drapes over Marco’s shoulders, the way his brow creases.

"We deploy in five minutes." Eren says, swallowing down a lump of emotion. He didn’t cry talking to Jean, but here with Marco, listening to sobs and retching and panic all around them, he wants to cry, or scream.

"You’re in the first wave?" Eren nods and Marco sighs. His fingers are hot around Eren’s wrists, pressed to his thudding pulse. "You be careful out there."

"You too. You got a cushy life waiting for you in Sina. Don’t fuck up." He doesn’t say that Marco will be leaving him, that they’ll be going their separate ways. They hadn’t talked about it before, Eren wouldn’t have it, now he wishes they had, and knows it certainly isn’t the time now.

He loops their fingers together and squeezes, nods at Marco and lets go. He has to rally his squad. Has to give them one hell of a pep talk, has to make them want to survive. He doesn’t want to say anymore, doesn’t want to make promises to Marco he’s not sure he'll be able to keep.

Destroying the titans come first.

"Eren!" Marco calls, grabs his forearm to drag him back, pulls him so close their chest brush and they breathe each others air. Then his lips are over Eren's soft and insistent, sweet and steady. Eren sighs into the kiss, reaches up to drag his finger through Marcos hair, shudders when his nails scrape over the sensitive spot at the back of his neck.

Armin's calling for him, but Eren’s not listening. He wants to stay here, safe and happy, in Marco’s arms; he wants to crush and swallow and keep him, a savage emotion like possessiveness swelling in his chest. He wants plenty of things he knows he can’t have.

"I have to go." He says against Marco’s mouth.

"I know." Marco murmurs, kissing the tip of his nose. "I know, but..."

"Don’t fuck up." Eren repeats, cutting him off. He bites Marco's lip hard, likes the way his blood tastes in his mouth and the way his lips look with his mark on them. He gets the feeling there’s something else he ought to say, that Marco wants to say as he reluctantly lets Eren pull away.

But it doesn’t matter. He can always say it later.

Later though, is in about a month. He will look at Jean, at the grim curl of his mouth, and half expect to see Marco jogging up behind him, ready with open arms and dimpled smiles and a kiss. He will feel his universe crumble in on itself, he will feel his world spill off its axis and all the stars wink out when Jean crassly tells him, “Marco’s dead.”

He will see Marco’s ghost, and he will not know if that knot of emotion sitting on his chest is regret, or a promise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which i'm the mother with 36 hours of labour pain and Mando is the father with a broken hand. many thanks to mando for seeing this through.


End file.
